Some recent problems in Chipotle-land:

The Food Poisoning Law Blog is reporting (and, in my opinion, trying to build up clients) on a potential Hepatitis A outbreak at a Chipotle in La Mesa, California.

That comes right on the heels of the “gastrointestinal illness” at the Kent State, Ohio, Chipotle location.

Which comes right on the heals of all the press coverage when Chipotle teamed up with polyface farms.

So…yikes? Is this just bad luck/timing and a natural occurrence when you run over 600 restaurants? Is this a sign of dropping quality as the chain expands so quickly?

NOTE: This is a followup to my earlier post about a personal tour of destination evans. The tour happened back in early October of 2007.

The Chief and the Photo

On the wall of the original chipotle (and many, if not all the other restaurants) is "The Chief". You could make up all sorts of ideas about how he guards over the quality of the food, or the Food with Integrity program or what have you. The bottom line is, that it's more of the cool maya-industrial art and now, much like the store is "Destination Evans" the chief gets to have his own name - at least as far as my tour guide Dave Hawkins is concerned.

Most Chipotle's have a photo of "Chipotle #1" on the wall. At Destination Evans itself they have photos on the walls, but the photo of their own location is from when it was a Dolly Madison restaurant. I need to double check the situation, but while I've heard that this is the only location that doesn't have a photo of "Destination Evans" on the wall I think there are others.

You can see the chief on the wall in the somerville chipotle which I visited recently.

Guacamole seasons

I’m currently in the middle of reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma and learning all about Polyface Farms and really loving their goals and the way they run their business. Then, I check my feed reader and see several new stories pop up - from the titles alone I was pretty excited:

• Chipotle Partners With Polyface For Sustainable Burritos
• One Polyface Burrito, Please
• Chipotle & Joel Salatin team up
• Chipotle and Polyface Farm
• In Trial Run, Chipotle Heads to the Farm

Wow. That’s a lot of great coverage for the new partnership (and both companies and their goals) including the obvious major coverage from the Washington Post. I won’t repeat the news that’s been posted by these folks other than to say if you like Chipotle for their Food With Integrity program, this seems like yet another great step down that road.

Now…to see about visiting that Chipotle location so that I can compare the carnitas at that location to the recipe I’m used to from the rest of the stores.

Food with Integrity Reading List (Media List)

This might be my new favorite combo. The pepper on the carnitas in combination with the other flavors is so delicious. Also, not so many beans and rice to weigh me down. This was a brand new receipt phrase for me, which is always fun.

I got some nice photos of this location with my new camera. Mmmm...gadgets.

I previously wrote about cattle ranchers being upset with Chipotle and it seems that is a continuing (growing?) problem for the company.

The Cattle Industry’s Viewpoint

Today, in my beef with Chipotle a Kansas State student wrote about why he is no longer going to be a Chipotle customer. You can see the story in the college newspaper that got “beefbites” upset and then his letter to the editor

In a more recent post, beefbites states his point perhaps most succinctly. After talking about how the “Natural, organic and grass-fed beef” niche markets are a boon to beef overall, he summarizes by saying:

The important thing to remember is that these niche-market meats should be promoted as an option while never implying that they are in any way safer or healthier than conventionally-produced beef.

There’s a lot of confusion in the world right now about a couple of terms:

• natural
• organic
• hormone/antiobitic free
• vegetarian fed
• humane

I wrote previously about how chipotle’s on notice from the beef industry for using “antibiotic free” as a differentiator.

well, now they’re getting hit from the other side. consumerist has a post questioning just how valid chipotle’s natural/humane sourcing is and whether their advertising of it is legit. is 50% natural/human/vegetarian fed cow enough to portray their beef with a happy cow? should they distribute these things at all with vegetarian burritos? is “vegetarian fed” even a good thing or should cows be allowed to eat only grass?

there are so many questions on the issue of “food with integrity” and so many opinions!

Most every opinion of “not good enough” can be answered with the dual pronged pro-chipotle message “better than everyone else and besides, get over it”.

but the whole point of “food with integrity” is that they don’t get over it. and it’s not good enough to just be better.

chipotle is and needs to continue being more and better than everyone else.

So, to you chipotle I say this: keep it up. Keep your consumers involved, informed, and educated about the process and sourcing of your food. Keep striving for a 100% “natural” source of meat that is humanely raised and fed the best possible diet. And keep cooking that pork for a long time so that it gets tender enough to fall apart in my teeth. Because pigs are a maaaagical animal and they are deeeelicious!

today marks the “analyst call” for chipotle’s quarter 1 2007. the numbers were pretty darn good. yahoo has a piece on it and so does bizjournals. i’m sure the local denver press will cover it tomorrow morning (and then wonder why their circulation is down 1% in the last 6 months while chipotle’s same store sales are up 8.3% in “same store” sales).

There were two things I thought were worth noting from the call:

Food With Integrity - Changing the Way Americans Think about Fast Food

About the food with integrity mission, Ells said:

We recently introduced naturally raised chicken in one of our largest markets, Colorado, and now two-thirds of the chicken we serve is naturally raised. As we advance Food With Integrity, we move closer to our goal of changing the way Americans think about and eat fast food.

Think about that for a minute. It’s not just a burrito join. The mission of Chipotle is Food With Integrity that changes the way you think about and eat fast food. Ok. That’s nice.

Valuing Their People

From my meeting with Houman Iskandani that was inspired by his appearance on their soda cups, it’s clear that chipotle wants to make Rock Stars out of their employees.

Our restaurant managers are the strongest they have ever been, as more of them are being promoted from our talented crew people. By preparing their crew to become future leaders, our best managers are creating a strong and sustainable culture of opportunity and people development.