Jack in the Box Admits Not Following Rule : Food: Chain’s parent acknowledges that state officials twice sent notices of new temperature standards for hamburgers, but appropriate officials never received them.

Foodmaker Inc. was notified that Washington state health officials had raised the required cooking temperature for hamburger as early as eight months before two children died in the state after eating tainted hamburgers at the firm’s Jack in the Box restaurants, a company official said Friday.

However, no action was taken because appropriate company officials were not informed of the new rule, Jack in the Box President Robert J. Nugent told stunned shareholders attending the annual meeting here of Foodmaker, parent of the restaurant chain.

That newly required temperature of 155 degrees--three degrees higher than the average temperature the restaurant chain was using--would have been enough to kill the bacteria that led to the children’s death from poisoning, health officials said.

Meanwhile, a decline in sales at Jack in the Box since the poisonings have begun to result in job losses.

Terry Herrick, president of Herrick/Socios Cos., a Los Angeles-based business that owns 52 Jack in the Box restaurants in California, Texas and Washington, said the impact has been “considerably harsher than the degree announced by Foodmaker.” Foodmaker has said that sales had fallen 30% to 35% since the outbreak.

Herrick, who said he owns 18 restaurants in the Los Angeles area, said he has had to lay off about 200 employees because of a sharp drop in customers. But he refused to say just how much his restaurants’ sales have dropped.

Discussing the Washington state regulation, Nugent told the annual meeting that Foodmaker was notified in May, 1992, of the new rule in a memo from the Bremerton-Kitsap County Health Department.

The same memo was mailed last September to a Jack in the Box restaurant in Tacoma, Wash., Nugent added. According to Nugent, the memos “were not brought to the attention of appropriate management” until earlier this week.

Nugent said Foodmaker has appointed a committee of board members to find out why the two memos were not brought to the attention of appropriate company officials.

“We have not yet decided what disciplinary action, if any, is appropriate or necessary,” Nugent said.

Besides the two deaths, several dozen people in the Pacific Northwest and Las Vegas became ill.

Health authorities in Washington blamed the deaths and illnesses on hamburger tainted with a virulent strain of bacteria called E. coli 0157:H7. The bacteria breeds in beef contaminated by cow excrement.

Nugent said the federal standard for cooking hamburger is 140 degrees. However, he said Jack in the Box restaurants in Washington are cooking hamburger at temperatures that averaged about 152 degrees.