Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell have followed McDonald’s lead and stopped using fresh onions in their foods, citing them as the most likely source of a deadly E. coli outbreak in western states.
Yum Brands, which owns the fast food chains, said in a statement that it has pulled onions from its menu ‘proactively’, noting that there has been no indication so far that anyone has become sick after eating from any of those restaurants.
It comes on the heals of a Colorado man’s death that investigators have tied to the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, which includes onions.
So far, 10 are hospitalized and 49 have fallen sick after eating McDonald’s hamburgers in multiple Mountain West states.
The Burger King Whopper contains onions, though there is no indication yet that people have gotten sick from eating at a Burger King
California-based Taylor Farms recalled several yellow onion batches after the FDA highlighted the vegetable as the ‘likely source of contamination.’
McDonald’s said it would stop using the onions and has halted sales of Quarter Pounders at restaurants across Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma.