Chipotle has good news for customers after the e. Coli scare
Flickr/b-dussChipotle customers will not shoulder the costs of the company's lofty new food safety goals.
CEO Steve Ells said that that the company doesn't plan to raise prices as it implements costly new food safety procedures, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Chipotle raised prices on its beef in August. It also raised prices last year, citing higher dairy and avocado costs.
Ells did not reveal how much the food safety changes at Chipotle will cost the company.
New measures include more testing, instituting high-tech food tracking inside restaurants, and procedures such as cutting, washing, and testing tomatoes at central commissaries to ensure cleanliness.
A few years in the future, Chipotle may raise prices to invest in food safety, but reports it does not plan to do so before 2017.
Last week, Ells said that the planned procedures were "so above industry norms that we are going to be the safest place to eat."
Chipotle's e. Coli outbreak has sickened more than 50 people in nine states since October. The chain was additionally hit by a norovirus outbreak in Boston, affecting at least 136 customers, primarily Boston College students.