Taco Bell reassures public

LOS ANGELES — Taco Bell Corp. launched a newspaper ad blitz and sent its president on a string of media interviews Tuesday to persuade customers that its food is safe — even as the cause of the E. coli outbreak linked to the fast-food chain remained a mystery.

In an open letter to customers published in USA Today, The New York Times and other newspapers, Taco Bell President Greg Creed said he would support the creation of a coalition of food suppliers, competitors, government and other experts to explore ways to safeguard the food-supply chain and public health.

Bryan Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association, a trade group that represents restaurants, farmers and others in the produce supply chain, said such an industry coalition already exists.

The group was formed two years ago and has been particularly active since September, when three people died and more than 200 became ill because of a spinach-related E. coli outbreak.

Irvine, Calif.-based Taco Bell, a subsidiary of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., ran ads in a number of papers in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where an outbreak of the bacteria has sickened 67 people who ate at the chain's restaurants.

The chain's effort to reassure customers was complicated Monday, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it could not confirm that scallions were the cause of the problem, as previously suspected, and that it was not ruling out any food as a possible culprit.

No additional cases of Taco Bell patrons falling ill with E. coli have been reported since Dec. 2, according to the FDA.

Meanwhile, another suspected E. coli outbreak that began in Iowa widened in Minnesota on Tuesday, with health officials linking 14 apparent cases to Taco John's restaurants in Albert Lea and Austin.

A spokesman for the Wyoming-based chain confirmed that the two southern Minnesota restaurants get their produce from the same supplier as the Taco John's in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where nearly three dozen people developed E. coli symptoms earlier this week.

Taco John's spokesman Brian Dixon identified the produce supplier for the three restaurants as St. Paul-based Bix Produce. But he stressed that the restaurant chain doesn't yet know if the produce was the source of the E. coli. The disease can also be carried by undercooked meat, and Dixon said the chain is testing samples of all types of food from the restaurants in question.

The company may decide to switch suppliers, he said.