Chipotle
Chipotle is a chain of restaurants that deals in fast moving foods like tacos and mission burritos. Chipotle has its foundation in the United States but due to excellent customer service and a strong vision it expanded into other countries like Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Canada. Chipotle has lived to achieve its mission and vision statement of changing people’s notion about fast foods and it has achieved this through using ingredients of the highest quality, charging affordable prices, using modern cooking methods and having an effective customer service. Chipotle also communicates its food value to its customers through its core values that include; prioritizing on responsibility and quality, sourcing raw materials direct from the farmers, and committing itself to use of the best ingredients. Chipotle was established in 1993 by Steve Ells, and it is its excellent customer service and provision of quality products and services that have seen the restaurant chain remain in the industry for twenty six years. Chipotle operates around 2 500 branches has employed around 80 000 employees globally (Abwanzo, 2017).
Chipotle has been excellent in connecting to the food system. Chipotle sources its products organically and locally. The implication is that Chipotle for instance sources its meat products directly from producers. The company has to ensure that the animals that provides the meat are not fed with antibiotics or growth hormones. In addition, the restaurant organization makes a follow up from its producers to ensure that the animals are healthy and consume locally produced feeds (Abwanzo, 2017). Chipotle believes in the ideology that the shorter the distance that food has to traverse, the more the quality and that is why the restaurant sources its products from local producers. One of the products served in the restaurant is beans and with this, the restaurant has to ensure that they are locally produced.
In addition, Chipotle obtains its cheese from cows that are not fed on growth hormones, and this helps in adhering to its quality promise to customers. Farmers who provide meat and pork rear their cattle and pigs from outside. Farmers feed their cattle with grass and no antibiotics are administered while the pigs are fed with vegetables. The restaurant has been able to provide high quality and delicious meat and pork to its customers. Besides, Chipotle uses indigenous chicken that are not fed on antibiotics. To enhance quality of the animal products, Chipotle signed the European Chicken Commitment, which is an initiative that will ensure higher standards of animal products in its supply chain both in the United States and Canada. Apart from the sourcing of its products, Chipotle is also committed to creating awareness of its products marketing and advertisement initiatives. Walker & Merkley (2017), states that Chipotle spends a significant rate of around 2.9 percent of revenue in marketing and promotion campaigns.
Chipotle has been unique and outstanding in its promotion and advertisement initiatives. Chipotle launched an initiative referred to as the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation that aims at obtaining food products without taking advantage of farmers, the environment or animals. In addition, the restaurant rolled out an initiative called Behind the Foil, an advertisement program run through television channels to enlighten the customers about the ingredients that make up the dishes served in the restaurant, and this improves the confidence and loyalty of customers (Assenza & Lewis, 2019). The television program encompasses how the farming partners of the restaurant harvest their products, how the food materials are transported to the restaurant and how the restaurant’s management improves the morale of the employees. To further enhance its marketing strategies, the restaurant launched another program called For Real that enlightens the restaurant’s customers on how it uses the various ingredients to prove its dishes.
Chipotle prides itself with having a strong clientele base of the Millennials. Millennial consider fast foods that are of high quality irrespective of the price. Chipotle food justice system has not been smooth all through. Customers raised safety concerns about the foods served in the restaurant, and this was a big blow to the restaurant because it lost a significant number of customers. According to a ruling from the Department of Justice, Chipotle had caused foodborne illnesses of around 1 100 customers and the restaurant was ordered to pay 25 million US dollars to settle the criminal charges (Subramanian, 2017). The restaurant was accused of breaking the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The management of the restaurant did not put enough measures in place to enlighten its employees about food safety measures, and this caused the illnesses of some of its customers.
Chipotle had previously been charged with several foodborne illnesses that had occurred in its branches in the United States, all of which the restaurant had agreed to the charges. The contributing factor was that the employees at the stores department had ignored the food safety measures. In addition, the employees who had become sick ignored the restaurants policy of exclusion of ill employees or employees with recent records of illnesses. For instance, in 2015, around 230 employees and customers fell sick at the Simi Valley branch in California State, and the restaurant’s management did not report the illness cases to Chipotle safety team as stated in the company policies (Subramanian, 2017). Consequently, other employees and consumers continued to fall sick. Chipotle continued to experience more cases of illnesses with Boston outlet reporting around 140 cases of illnesses that were suspected to have been caused by a manager who failed to exclude himself despite falling sick (Subramanian, 2017).
The same manager was involved in packaging an order that was to be delivered to the basket team of Boston College. The consequence was that several of the team players fell sick after consuming the food. Gilliard, Hoffman & Baalbaki (2017), notes that a similar case was also experienced in Powell whereby around 600 cases of illness resulting to pathogens were reported. Investigations form local health institutions revealed that food regulations had not been adhered to. For instance, the local health institution found that the beans were not maintained in relevant temperatures. Later on, some employees begun confessing that some of the restaurants had limited staffing and they were not accorded sufficient training concerning food safety. Additionally, other employees reported that they were forced to report to work while sick despite the inclusion in the company’s exclusion sick policies. Chipotle bounced back and developed an effective compliance program on food safety and worked with the Food Safety Council to assess the food safety programs of the company, level of employee training and staffing.
Chipotle food security efforts include establishment of a Food Safety team that is bestowed with the mandate of ensuring food safety measures in all restaurants. To enhance further food safety measures, the company has an external food safety team, the Food Safety Advisory Council, which encompasses some of the top food safety experts. According to Assenza & Lewis (2019), the Food Safety Advisory Council works jointly with the company’s Board of Directors to ensure the implementation of policies and strategies that guarantee food safety. The company has also embarked on ensuring the safety of food products throughout the supply chain. The company works towards ensuring that the both the handling and storage of the food products in the supply chain is up to the highest standards to avoid any health risks. All restaurants of Chipotle are operated within the United States Food and Drug Administration component called the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system, through which the company is able to determine risks related to food safety and then take the necessary actions.
Besides, the company has also worked to reduce food contamination through sick employees. Chipotle has implemented its sick leave policy that allows staff to have three days as sick leave. Any new staff has to undergo through a wellness check before commencing work to ascertain that they have no health complications. Also, every kitchen in every restaurant has a poster that contains the top food safety guidelines to adhere to, and this include; keeping safe produce, maintaining food at particular temperatures and observing a clean working environment (Subramanian, 2017). Additionally, the company works with its suppliers to ensure that ingredients are of the highest quality, provides both financial and industrial support to small scale farmers to help them adjust their systems such that they adhere to the standards of food safety.
Chipotle has been practicing corporate soxial responsibility for many years. Chipotle gives donations and supports money-raising activities for K-12 learning institutions that are concerned with the youth, agriculture and food. Chipotle also supports opportunities that allow organizations to conduct fundraising in the restaurants in which a certain percentage of the day’s sales are remitted to the organization conducting the fundraising. In addition, Chipotle also supports the National School Garden Program in the United States by donating funds to ensure that school gardens have adequate resources. The company has also been involved in conducting a film screening in which the proceeds were directed to Urban Roots, which is a community organization that focuses on farming and food to positively impact the lives of many young people in Texas. Besides, the company has also been involved in financially supporting Friends of Trees, an organization involved in tree planting in Oregon and where Chipotle has raised a total of 1300 US dollars (DeMicco, Parsa & Gao, 2018). Moreover, Chipotle has been supporting health programs. For instance, the company organized a fundraising in Texas for the children’s hospital of San Antonio whereby the company donated around 5600 US dollars (DeMicco, Parsa & Gao, 2018).
Chipotle ensures food sovereignty by supporting and training farmers. The company has launched an initiative called the Local Grower Support, through which it has been financially supporting and educating local farmers so as to implement standards that guarantee food safety and security. Consequently, production has been increasing and the surplus is sold to community members. Also, Chipotle provides food substances to needy people in the community. For instance in 2018, the company donated at least 290 000 pounds of foods to needy people in different communities (DeMicco, Parsa & Gao, 2018). In addition, Chipotle has been in partnership with National Young Farmers Coalition and Niman Ranch whereby the company has been able to offer startup capital to young farmers who have been working to ensure that the community is food secure.
Several articles have lauded Chipotle’s success, and some have attributed the success to its small menu. A small menu minimizes the needed ingredients, and thus lowers waste. Small menu also facilitates faster service delivery and makes customers aware on what is on offer in each single day. Chipotle’s success has also been attributed to the ability to exercise control since it does not allow for franchising (Abwanzo, 2017). Personally, I believe that the company has been successful due to excellent customer service and having reliable suppliers. Secondly, the company’s contribution to community activities has also made the company win the loyalty of many customers, something that has also resulted to the success. Additionally, the company has also been friendly to its employees and many of them have been promoted and this has also made the company to succeed.
References
Abwanzo, B. (2017). Chipotle Company Assessment. Available at SSRN 3278492.
Walker, R., & Merkley, G. (2017). Chipotle Mexican grill: Food with integrity?. Kellogg School of Management.
Assenza, P., & Lewis, M. S. (2019). Can Chipotle compete by delivering “food with integrity”?. The CASE Journal.
Subramanian, R. (2017). Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.:“food with integrity”. In Case Studies in Sustainability Management (pp. 288-304). Routledge.
Gilliard, D. J., Hoffman, D. L., & Baalbaki, S. (2017). Is Chipotle Mexican Grill Successfully Recovering from Its Food-Related Incidents?. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 11(4), 34-48.
Assenza, P., & Lewis, M. S. (2019). Can Chipotle compete by delivering “food with integrity”?. The CASE Journal.
DeMicco, F., Parsa, H. G., & Gao, J. (2018). Chipotle Mexican grill: A sustainability champion going global with China.