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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA major supplier of onions has issued a recall amid an E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers, prompting several other fast food chains to remove fresh onions from their restaurants.
Some Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants are no longer serving fresh onions “out of an abundance of caution,” a spokesman for Yum! Brands, the parent company of the chains, said in a statement. The spokesman declined to identify the states where the onions were removed.
The removal of onions comes amid a federal investigation into the E. coli outbreak, which has sickened 49 people in 10 states, including one person who died. Several federal agencies and public health officials in multiple states are working to find the culprit, and the Food and Drug Administration said this week that slivered onions are a likely source of contamination, citing preliminary information reviewed by the agency.
US Foods, a food distributor, said it has issued a recall of specific onion products on behalf of a third-party supplier, Taylor Farms’ Colorado facility. The recall affects six US Foods distribution centers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and New Mexico.
US Foods does not distribute products to McDonald’s restaurants, according to a company spokesperson. But McDonald’s confirmed to The Washington Post that Taylor Farms supplies onions to McDonald’s in the states affected by the outbreak.
Taylor Farms did not respond to requests for comment. Yum! Brands declined to say whether Taylor Farms is its supplier of onions.
McDonald’s has stopped using fresh slivered onions and quarter-pound beef patties in several states while the investigation is underway, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fast food chain is “proactively making these changes” while investigators work to confirm the contaminated ingredient, the CDC said Tuesday.
“The FDA is using all available tools to confirm if onions are the source of this outbreak,” including collecting onion samples for analysis, agency spokeswoman Janell Goodwin said in a statement Thursday evening.
The FDA confirmed that Taylor Farms has initiated a voluntary recall, adding that yellow onions were sold to additional food service companies. The agency did not share the names of the companies.
McDonald’s stores in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming and parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma have temporarily stopped using the slivered onions and Quarter Pounder beef patties. Most illnesses were reported in Colorado and Nebraska.
In an internal email, Cesar Piña, McDonald’s chief supply chain officer for North America—wrote that initial findings from the investigation indicate “a subset of illnesses may be linked to slivered onions used in the Quarter Pounder and sourced by a single supplier that serves three distribution centers.”
Most kinds of E. coli are harmless and are part of a healthy intestinal tract. But some of the bacteria can make people sick, including with diarrhea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and sepsis.
A small percentage of those diagnosed with an E. coli infection can develop a potentially life-threatening condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure, permanent health problems and even death. People who develop HUS should be hospitalized, according to the CDC, and most people recover within weeks.
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Why are these reports from Hospitals so often the first sign there’s widespread food contamination?
Don’t we test anything?