Jack in the Box Is Springing Back After Food Poisoning Disaster

Three years ago, Foodmaker Inc. faced the worst crisis a corporation could imagine: Four children died and about 600 other people were sickened after eating at the company’s Jack in the Box restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.

Today, the company is rebounding--Foodmaker is turning a profit as customers are returning, drawn to Jack in the Box by the reappearance of its once-famous clown mascot.

“For the most part they’re beyond the critical point and that was getting people to eat in their stores,” said David L. Rose, a securities analyst with the investment firm Jefferies & Co. Inc. But, he added, the food poisoning is “going to haunt them for a while.”

Last week, San Diego-based Foodmaker, with 1,200 restaurants primarily in the Western United States, announced its second straight quarterly profit since January, 1993, when the bacteria called E. coli appeared in its hamburgers in the Northwest.