All Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants will close down for a couple of hours on February 8 to discuss the topic of food safety changes with its workers, following several food poisoning outbreaks last year. The restaurant chain's spokesman Chris Arnold announced that a national team meeting would be held next month to share new food safety procedures and to answer questions.

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Last year the restaurant chain had many E.coli and norovirus outbreaks at various restaurants. It started last July when people got sick from E.coli after eating at a Seattle branch, followed by 100 employees and customers becoming ill by a California norovirus outbreak in August.

During the next month the Minnesota Department of Health discovered that tomatoes had caused a salmonella outbreak. It sickened 64 people, and nine of them were hospitalized.

From the end of October to mid-November, an E.coli outbreak had spread to over 50 people in nine states, according to Quartz. Then a norovirus outbreak in December affecting over 140 college students was traced to a Boston area Chipotle.

The United States Attorney's Office for a California district, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will investigate one norovirus outbreak this month. It yearly affects about 267 million people.

Chipotle's officials announced that last year they started new safety measures for food safety and handling. They include steps such as end-of-shelf-life testing, DNA tests for fresh produce, improving employee training, and testing  the performance of suppliers and vendors, according to ABC News.

Earlier this week at a Chipotle investor conference in Florida, the company's executives shared their plans to win back customers. They include traditional advertising, direct mail, and giving away free food.

The company has admitted that Chipotle likely will not recover this year following a 14.6 percent drop in same-store sales during Q4 of last year. However, it hopes the issues will be cleared up by next year.

CEO Steve Ells told investors that Chipotle is as safe now as it was in the past. However, the high-profile food poisoning cases have scared many customers.  

Chipotle was founded in 1993. It specializes in tacos and Mission burritos.

Here are some tips for avoiding food poisoning: