Chipotle employees attending today’s chainwide staff meeting learned of a new policy intended to safeguard guests: All crewmembers will be required to stay home for five days after symptoms from an illness disappear, for which they will be paid, according to press reports.
Members of the press who managed to slip into the meetings, held at 400 locations across the country, reported hearing far more about containing norovirus than they did about combatting E.coli.
If a staff member or customer should vomit inside a restaurant, the unit must be shut down immediately, according to the protocols that were spelled out at the four-hour training update on safety procedures.
Managers will be expected to report any instances to the home office of a field-level employee getting sick, and employees will be expected to alert higher-ups if they vomit, at home or at work, or merely feel sick. They will then be required to stay home.
Videos shown during the meeting reviewed such food safety fundamentals as how to sanitize surfaces and the most effective way to destroy germs through hand washing.
Chipotle also revealed that it will spend $10 million to help small-scale suppliers upgrade their safety processes.
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