McDonald’s will return the Quarter Pounder to menus across several states this week after yanking the burger due to an E. coli outbreak.
The burger’s beef patties were not the source of the outbreak, according to tests from the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Instead, the Quarter Pounder’s slivered onions were to blame.
The approximately 900 stores that stopped serving Quarter Pounders will put them back on the menu this week without the onions, McDonald’s said Sunday in a statement.
“We are now confident in asking our beef suppliers to produce a new supply of fresh beef patties for the impacted areas,” McDonald’s supply chain boss Cesar Piña said in a statement. “This will be on a rolling basis based on delivery and resupply operations.”
The affected stores were in Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming along with parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah. Other McDonald’s franchises across the country continued selling Quarter Pounders.
A McDonald’s menu in Colorado shows the Quarter Pounder unavailable. (AP)
One person was killed and at least 75 people infected by E. coli from McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, with 22 seeking hospital treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The outbreak was traced to slivered onions from Taylor Farms, a California-based company with a facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Taylor Farms has temporarily stopped producing onions for McDonald’s and is under investigation from the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC. Several other fast food restaurants, including Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, pulled onions from menu items after the outbreak was reported.
“The issue appears to be contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald’s restaurants,” Piña said.
According to the CDC, about 74,000 Americans are infected by E. coli each year, with around 60 people dying. Children younger than 5 years old, elderly people, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are at the highest risk of serious infection.