Decades later, Jack in the Box's E. coli outbreak is still being recalled. Here's why

More than three decades have passed since the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, yet it’s still the yardstick used to gauge the impact of a food-safety crisis. Hours after McDonald’s revealed its problems with Quarter Pounders, commentators were already recalling the contamination in the Northwest that left four children dead, another 200 persons permanently impaired and nearly 750 sickened in total.

The numbers, though daunting, don’t capture the full import of the catastrophe. Indeed, more consumers were stricken in the series of food-safety calamities that badly tarnished Chipotle starting nine years ago. The Jack in the Box crisis was an industrywide wake-up call, the catalyst that elevated food safety from a mild concern to a top priority for the business. 

What exactly happened at the 73 Jack in the Box restaurants in the Pacific Northwest? This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind looks back at what’s near-universally seen as a turning point for the industry. Give a listen for a deeper understanding about why the whole business gulped when a deadly bacteria made its return.