E. coli outbreak 2015: Starbucks pulls off their holiday Turkey sandwiches due to possible infection

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Starbucks Corp. decided to pull out every single Turkey Panini from their US stores last week after knowing that their sandwich is being linked with E. Coli, which made the Costco Wholesale Corp. the news headline recently, the Bloomberg reported.

A few days ago, Costco made it to the headline after their rotisserie chicken sandwich was pointed out to be the cause of the recent E. Coli outbreak that infected at least 19 people in seven states of US. After knowing that their chicken sandwich contains the bacteria, Costco immediately pulled out their rotisserie chicken from their US stores and advised consumers to return or throw their Costco's rotisserie chicken salad with a certain code number.

Now, the main culprit to the E. Coli outbreak has been revealed. According to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the ingredient of Costco's chicken salad that caused the E. Coli outbreak is the tainted celery supplied by Taylor's Farms Pacific of Tracy, California.

This revelation led to more concerns as Taylor's Farms isn't supplying tainted celery to Costco alone. It is also the celery supplier to other big food chains and retailers, including Walmart, Safeway, Target, Sam's Club, 7-Eleven and Starbucks.

After knowing this, Starbucks has made a product recall for its Turkey Paninis that come with "enjoy-by" dates of Nov. 27 to 28 from over 1,300 stores in California, Nevada and Oregon. Erin Jane Schaeffer, the spokeswoman of Starbucks, said that there were no other affected stores outside from the three states stated. She also said that there are still no reports about someone being diagnosed with E. Coli after eating their panini.

The stocks of Starbucks have declined 0.03 percent on Tuesday afternoon.

Starbucks pulled out only their holiday Turkey Panini as it is the only product that contained the celery. 7-eleven is also recalling its "fresh-to-go Bistro snack tray." On the other hand, Walmart, Costco and Safeway were or are still recalling multiple products. To check what products they are pulling out, check the list from KGW.

According to Biz Journals, the strain found in the tainted celery is much more alarming than the E. Coli outbreak that made Chipotle shut down its 43 branches last month. While the source of the bacteria that caused Costco's E. Coli outbreak has already been pinned down, the source of Chipotle's E. Coli outbreak that made more than 40 people sick has not yet been discovered. The health officials are still trying to figure out what caused the outbreak.