McDonald’s investing millions to win back customer trust after E. coli outbreak

DENVER (KDVR) — After at least 30 cases of E. coli in Colorado were attributed to customers eating at McDonald's, including one case that resulted in death, the fast food giant is investing millions to try and win back the trust of customers.

McDonald's announced this weekend that it's going to spend $100 million to try and get people back to the Golden Arches after losing sales thanks to that E. coli outbreak. An economics professor told FOX31 this is the right move for the company.

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"In economics, we just call it an outside shock to the company and some outside shocks are good, some are bad," said Kishore Kulkarni, an economics professor at MSU Denver.

Kulkarni said the E. coli outbreak was a bad outside shock. McDonald's announced that $100 million will now go towards bringing people back into the restaurants. Kulkarni said that the money isn't the issue.

"$100 million is not really the main question because they can always find that change somewhere," he said. "What is more important is the name of the company."

Earning back the trust that was broken should now be the company's main goal, says Kulkarni, and cash is the best place to start.

"The more they spend, the better trust will be there and faster it will come," he said.

While McDonald's hasn't specified exactly what the money will be used for, Kulkarni expects it will go to better food safety checks among other things.

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"They've got to spend the money on quality," said Kulkarni. "They've got to spend some money on advertisements and commercials and informing consumers that they are taking a precaution to not have this again happen."

McDonald's said that of that $100 million, $65 million will go directly to the hardest hit franchises, which may indicate that much of it will be coming here to Colorado where most of the cases were reported.