A McDonald’s supplier recalled yellow onions produced in a Colorado plant in response to a deadly E. coli outbreak at the fast food chain.
Taylor Farms, which supplies onions to McDonald’s franchises that are the subject of a multi-state investigation by health authorities, said it was pulling products “out of an abundance of caution” and that it did not find traces of E. coli as of Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration has pointed to Taylor Farms onions as “a likely source of contamination.”
The Post has sought comment from Taylor Farms and McDonald’s.
US Foods Holding Corp, which also counts Taylor Farms as a client, told at least one restaurant that it scrapped its supply of onions, according to Bloomberg News.
“Taylor Farms Colorado removed yellow onions from the market produced out of our Colorado facility. We continue to work closely with FDA and CDC during this ongoing investigation,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
McDonald’s on Tuesday pulled its Quarter Pounders off the menu from one-fifth of its locations after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that E. coli found in the burger led to one person dying and dozens of others being hospitalized.
“We fully expect to see more cases,” said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.
“McDonald’s has moved rather quickly to take action to, hopefully, prevent as many cases as possible.”
Eric Stelly, a Colorado resident, alleged in a court filing submitted in Cook County, Ill. that he purchased food from a Greeley, Col. McDonald’s franchise on Oct. 4. Two days later, he said he began experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, stomach cramps and bloody stools.
On Oct. 8, he checked himself in to the emergency room of a hospital, where medical staff confirmed through tests that he was poisoned with E. coli, according to his attorney.
The FDA launched a preliminary investigation which found that fresh slivered onions that are served raw on Quarter Pounder hamburgers were a likely source of the contamination.
McDonald’s also serves raw, slivered onions on one of its breakfast sandwiches, but that sandwich isn’t available at the impacted stores. Other burgers, like the Big Mac, use diced, cooked onions.
McDonald’s said it was searching for a new regional supplier for fresh onions.
In the meantime, Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, and portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
Colorado has had the most reported cases of any state so far, and it’s where the one death involving an older adult occurred.
Infections were reported between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11 in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
State and local public health officials were interviewing people about the foods they ate in the week before they got sick.
Of the 18 people interviewed as of Tuesday, all reported eating at McDonald’s, and 16 people reported eating a hamburger. Twelve reported eating a Quarter Pounder.
McDonald’s said it has worked closely with federal food safety regulators since late last week, when it was alerted to the potential outbreak.
The company said the scope of the problem and the popularity of its products have complicated efforts to identify the contamination source.
McDonald’s has more than 14,000 US stores and serves 1 million Quarter Pounders every two weeks in the affected 12-state area.
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