Corporate Sabotage? Norovirus Resurfaces At 1 Location

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to ask if Chipotle could be under corporate sabotage. While Blue Bell ice cream left 3 people dead, with no investigation for countless months, we weren’t surprised that federal investigators jumped on the Chipotle outbreak in mere weeks.

That’s right, weeks- even though the outbreaks have yet to kill anyone(let’s hope they never do).

Chipotle even voluntarily closed all their stores for a day after previous outbreaks and were praised by experts at their professionalism on the whole matter. So, despite the fact that no customers were sickened, it’s plastered all over mainstream news, the stock drops after hours, and a media frenzy ensues. It’s literally on every mainstream site I see.

And now, here we go again. There has been one confirmed case of a Chipotle employee(the health department has not received any reports of customers becoming ill)coming down with the Norovirus. It seems they can’t catch a break:

“A location in Billerica, Mass., has been temporarily VOLUNTARILY shuttered due to norovirus concerns, reports WHDH-TV. Again one employee at the restaurant is confirmed to have contracted norovirus, according to the Billerica Board of Health, and two more are suspected, but not confirmed.”

As you can imagine, the internet is chattering about whether this is corporate sabotage or bad luck; how is this only happening to the only non-GMO fast food restaurant chain we know of?

From the Eater article:

“‘After learning that four of our employees were not feeling well, our restaurant in Billerica, Mass., was closed for a full sanitization,’ Arnold said in an email. ‘We do not know if the employees are ill with norovirus, and no customer illnesses are connected to this restaurant. Any employees who reported feeling ill will be tested and held out of the restaurant until they fully recover.'”

Sadly, when Wall Street heard about Chipotle’s latest issue their stock dove sharply in after-hours trading, shedding nearly 3.5 percent in less than a

n hour.

Chipotle stock

After the salmonella, E. coli and norovirus(multiple) outbreaks in 2015, the restaurant chain has been diligently working on a plan to make everything safer for its customers and financial analysts believed they were headed in the right direction. So this is terrible timing. Again, we wonder if its all just been sabotage.

The Billerica location is less than 30 miles from the Boston Chipotle that had norovirus in December. In that outbreak, more than 140 customers(mostly Boston College students and staff)became ill. Thankfully, Chipotle kept its word -it’s an honest and good company- to shut down immediately at the first sign of threat to food safety. Their behavior in the past and with the latest issue, proves that they do not deserve how the media or U.S. Attorney’s office have treated them.

We will continue to eat there and hope that things get settled; we’d love to find out that this has been sabotage, so that Chipotle can continue to make great non-GMO food for the masses.

Source: Eater