美国食品安全恐慌冲击餐饮业，Sweetgreen下调业绩预期

Joining us now is Bloomberg restaurant reporter Daniella Sirtori. Alright. How do we say the name of this? Thank you. Why is it everywhere, and is there anything left that I can eat? Because it seems like all of my food is coming for me. Alright. Cyclospora, the parasites, cyclosporiasis, the disease. There we go. Okay. Okay. Thank you. There we go. Yes. And and definitely, you know, Michigan actually, you know, as you guys were saying, told people that, lettuce is fine now after warning, people to stay off, salad mixes, because of this parasite, which has infected tons of people in the state.

And the interesting part of this is that the rate of infections has been just so much higher than in prior years. I mean, it's a seasonal type of parasite. People eat more salads in the summer. It's hot out, but this year, it's just been off the charts, basically. Daniella, walk us through through the way this has become kind of manifest in, the bottom lines of a lot of these restaurants. You you reported on Sweetgreen, the salad change, which I should should note, has not been having any difficulties whatsoever with this particular parasite, but is feeling the knock on effects of this.

Talk a bit more about that, just kind of like how this parasite existing, in some of our guts, but mostly in our psyches, is affecting the way that people are buying food, going to restaurants right now. Absolutely. So, you know, since the Cyclospora outbreak, basically, Americans all over the country have been really spooked to eat anything with lettuce. The interesting part is that the outbreak, you know, it is large, but it was only related to iceberg lettuce pro provided by a supplier called Taylor Farms, sold in restaurants like Taco Bell.

It did go to other, you know, retailers like Walmart. So it it did have a broad reach, but it was only iceberg lettuce. Sweetgreen doesn't even sell iceberg lettuce, but it was just a chilling effect that this parasite had, that basically made people pull back from anything that was basically heavy on leafy greens. And so sweet green was already struggling, because of its own missteps. The company has admitted that its prices were too high, that perhaps its offerings weren't really resonating with people.

And so it was already on a turnaround plan, and then this parasite comes along. And, basically, it forced the company to cut its annual annual outlook even more. So previously, they expected that sales at their established restaurants were gonna fall by about 4%, as much as 4%. Now they expect as much as 8% simply because of the fact that people are scared of of lettuce, basically. And, you know, it's also worth it to know.

It's not just that sweet green supply chain hasn't been hit by this. They don't even sell serve iceberg lettuce. I should say they do not. It's arugula and other spring mixes that I get when I go to school. Did just look up if there is a DSM specific order for fear of lettuce. There is not, although there might be, after this. After this. Yeah. But it's That's good. But It's not just lettuce. You know, now we've got this, potential salmonella outbreak.

It's tied 27 illness clusters have been reported at Chipotle and Qdoba locations in seven states, likely somewhere in the ingredient mix of jalapenos, red onions, cilantro, avocado. Has an article out right now called American food safety is in its flop era. Is this gonna put a bigger burden on the private sector to self police if, you know, if the government isn't doing it, but it is gonna start impacting their bottom line?

So so it's interesting to see the sequence of events here. So even for a company like, Chipotle, which has pretty advanced systems that allow it to know where basically everything in its supply chain has been. Right? So when the company found that the the the jalapenos that they use for the guacamole could be, you know, tainted with the salmonella, they have this system where they can go in and, like, pretty quickly pinpoint where this ingredient, has been, who the supplier is, and all of that.

So I would say that in that regard, a lot of companies have definitely come quite far when it comes to, being able to really understand their supply chains. But, you know, the order of events still is that a state, for example, in this case, it was Minnesota, has to tell the company that they're seeing illnesses. Right? And so it it does matter, you know, when states, such as Minnesota have a functioning system, like a functioning unit that tracks, you know, foodborne foodborne illnesses there.

We should say that as of now, you know, this outbreak with, with salmonella has been tied to jalapenos from a specific supplier. There have already been recalls in place. And restaurants such as Chipotle and Qdoba as well actually removed the ingredient, from their restaurants before the information even became public. So, actually, Bloomberg News was first to report this on Monday on August fourth that Chipotle was linked to this outbreak.

And by then, the jalapenos were already out of the restaurants. And so, basically, the health authorities have come out and said, look. Like, because these restaurants were able to act pretty quickly, we don't think that there's, like, an ongoing risk. Like, they're not really telling people to stay away from restaurants. Unlike with the cyclospora outbreak, you know, in the early days with Taco Bell, some of the federal health authorities actually did come out and say, hey, guys.

Don't eat this lettuce at Taco Bell in this particular states. Danielle, great to speak with you. Danielle Sirtori joining us this morning. Cyclosporia say it one more time for me. Cyclosporiasis. There we go. I'm gonna say it five times during this next commercial break.