businessweek did an interview with chipotle founder steve ells. it’s a pretty interesting read though most of it was stuff that i knew already. interesting new nuggets:

chipotle’s size and growth

the 573-unit company is opening a new location every four days…Today, Chipotle employs more than 15,000 people

so, that’s pretty fast growth of stores for a company that doesn’t franchise. it’s almost 100 new stores a year. not too shabby. having 15,000 employees seems crazy because i’ve seen their corporate offices and they were small. i imagine that each store has around 20 employees, so that’s about 11,000 people in the stores themselves. i could see having another couple thousand supporting the stores (like regional managers, transportation of ingredients, and such).

percent of organic or natural foods at chipotle mexican grill

We’ve certainly got enough all-natural pork. Today, more than 60% of our chicken is naturally raised, and we’re well on our way to having enough all naturally raised chicken. We’re 40% all-natural on beef. Almost 30% of our beans are organic.

again, that was mostly stuff i knew was either completely done or under way, but it’s nice to have hard numbers on the subject. if you’ve read much about patagonia’s own quest to use organic cotton and sustainable products in its clothing then you are familiar with this process. the company gets a small number of its suppliers to begin walking towards the eventual goal (be that organic, hormone free, or whatever) and then slowly as the price of that ingredient goes down you can integrate more and more of it into your stores. it’s really really neat to see. congrats to chipotle for slowly continuing this walk one ingredient at a time.

chipotle’s inspiration

ells talks a bit aobut the companies that he respects and (no surprise) they’re companies that i also like and respect. he appreciates the simplicity and attention to high quality details from in-and-out and the way that apple has made its customers into disciples that are the main form of advertisement (note to self, I guess that includes me…).