Taco Bell Crisis Worsens

This has been a tough week for Taco Bell. The Orange County based Mexican fast food chain is getting hammered on the East Coast due to an outbreak of E. coli infections among people who have eaten in their stores. Now and entire state's stores are being asked to throw out all their food, and they've banned green onions nationwide:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - New Jersey health officials addressing an E.coli outbreak on Wednesday asked Taco Bell restaurants in the state to throw out all their food and better train workers in hygiene and food handling.

At least 47 people in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have been infected with E.coli in the last few weeks, and dozens more potential cases are being investigated. Many of the infected people had eaten at Taco Bell prior to becoming sick, the states said.

New York state officials on Wednesday raised the number of E.coli cases associated with the Taco Bell outbreak to 15 and said 15 more are being investigated.

Taco Bell officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Yum Brands Inc. unit Taco Bell said it stopped serving green onions at all of its 5,800 U.S. restaurants after tests showed three samples were found to be "presumptive positive" for the E.coli 0157:H7 strain.

New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner Fred Jacobs said all Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey should be sanitized and all their food should be thrown out.

Taco Bell officials are trying to stay out of the news by refusing comment, but that's a dangerous tactic in a crisis. They need to get their plans to stop the crisis out front instead of allowing the media to dictate the message. For a food service business, this is the nightmare crisis since it questions the safety of their only product - food.

I'll be interested to hear what this has done to sales nationwide.