if you're a fan of fast casual tacos and
burritos
chances are that you're a regular patron
of chipotle
but unfortunately while everything may
look shiny on the outside
there are some pretty big secrets that
this chain would rather you
not know about chipotle is often praised
for the minimalist chic of its design
where spare but considered interior
architecture mimic spare but considered
ingredients
and while that might make a great story
for the magazines
it's actually a load of rubbish when
steve ells opened his first chipotle
restaurant in 1993
he did it with minimal funding so he
wasn't in a position to splurge on
interior designers
so he went to a local hardware store and
cobbled together whatever he could from
what he found there
luckily for him the spare industrial
aesthetic
never seems to go out of style for the
burrito craving demographic
and other chains have reportedly been
eager to recreate this success
unfortunately since desperately doing
the best you can with a limited budget
isn't a commonly recognized interior
design process
they may end up paying quite a lot for a
bad copy of cheapness
you might think it's fair to assume that
a restaurant called chipotle mexican
grill would be interested in promoting
latin american culture
but certain events suggest that that may
not actually be the case
in 2014 chipotle decided to bring some
literary flavor to the dining experience
by commissioning 10
writers and creatives to produce new
works that would grace the restaurant's
bags and cups for a campaign called
cultivating thought that probably sounds
perfectly reasonable
so far there's nothing inherently wrong
with bringing a little
cultural enlightenment to an otherwise
indigestion riddled lunch break
the problem was that the program didn't
include a single mexican or
mexican-american writer
they did have a cup designed by miguel
bustos who hails from spain
but still for a restaurant making a
fortune by imitating mexican cuisine
you'd think that hiring mexican artists
to participate in a promotional campaign
would be a no-brainer
but it seems chipotle only cares about
the parts of mexican culture people want
to put in their faces
and not the parts that can amplify
minority voices writers lisa alvarez and
alex espinoza
even created a facebook page called
cultivating invisibility
chipotle's missing mexicans as espinoza
wrote
here's the thing i exist i am full of
stories
just ask me and i'll tell you but you
have to ask don't ignore me
don't eat my food and think you know me
to turn a profit a company has to make
more money than it spends
one of the biggest expenses for
companies like chipotle is
labor thanks to minimum wage laws there
isn't much that can be done to reduce
that
or so you might think in 2016 almost 10
000
american chipotle employees joined a
lawsuit claiming that the company was
guilty of wage theft
the accusation alleged that managers at
chipotle restaurants
required workers on the closing shift to
clock out at a certain time
but then continue working unpaid until
they were given permission to leave
furthermore at many of the company's
locations the process was automated with
workers being automatically clocked out
at a set time
whether or not they were finished
working i did it because i was tired of
getting taken advantage of
chipotle denied the allegations claiming
that the problem was with a few managers
who didn't follow policy
but no matter what the company claims
its policy is with this many complaints
coming out
it's worth noting that actions speak
louder than words
if you've ever spent a few months
throwing your extra change into a jar
and then doing something fun with the
resulting cash you know that it can add
up pretty quickly
when all that spare change comes from
chipotle customers
you can imagine that the chain would
make a fortune by keeping all that loose
change
that they're supposed to give back and
according to a lawsuit filed in 2020
that's exactly what happened as reported
by pittsburgh's kdka
the pennsylvania attorney general's
office received numerous complaints of
chipotle locations
that weren't giving customers their
proper change back
one customer claimed that when her bill
came out to 15.51
she was given just four dollars change
when she paid
20 dollars another customer claims that
they had a bill of eight dollars
72 cents paid with a 20 and got only 11
dollars back
attorneys representing these surprised
customers alleged that this was a top
down directive from the corporation
and that the excuse is likely a coin
shortage related to the kobit 19
pandemic
as attorney frank selpietro put it i
understand that the pandemic is
affecting all of us but that doesn't
give chipotle the license to line its
own pockets at the expense of consumers
an attorney sao pietro says this can
really
impact those who could least afford it
people who don't have an atm card or a
credit card
as for chipotle it offered no immediate
response to the accusations
chipotle has always made a big deal
about its guacamole which makes it
especially noticeable when it suddenly
becomes
less than appetizing in 2019 some
customers were complaining that the
guacamole they were served was brown
and stringy it was just generally pretty
nasty the kind of nasty that made people
wonder why chipotle was still
serving it as it turns out some
locations actually did stop
and the problem was even bigger than
originally thought
social media was filled with images of
people pulling entire sections of unripe
avocado
out of their bowls and burritos the
worst thing was that chipotle claimed
that it was
pretty much normal what happened was an
annual switch in avocado suppliers
mexican avocados are in season between
november and
april so peruvian avocados fill in
during the summer months
in a statement chipotle's chief
communications officer
laurie shallow said due to the seasonal
transition from peruvian to mexican
supplies that happens
every year at this time we are
experiencing normal variabilities in our
avocados
but as far as plenty of customers saw it
this wasn't exactly a normal thing that
happens every year
leaving many people to now be on the
lookout for brown guacamole
do you think twice about getting that
guacamole at chipotle
the company is hoping that you don't
because the big picture
is kind of terrifying according to
chipotle
customers order about 50 million pounds
of guacamole per year
that translates to more than 450 000
avocados per day
which might be hard to wrap your head
around especially when you consider that
avocados are pretty terrible for the
planet
there's a lot to unpack here for
starters many of the places where
avocados grow
like mexico peru california and chile
are regions that frequently labor under
water shortages
considering that avocados require about
twice the amount of water as a crop like
oranges
that's a huge strain skyrocketing demand
for avocados
has also been linked to deforestation
and environmental degradation
the vast acreage devoted to avocados
consists of what are called
monoculture plantations that means
they're consistently growing just one
crop
and without crop rotations that means
greater need for fertilizers and
pesticides which brings a whole new host
of problems to deal with
even worse large-scale avocado
production has also attracted the
attention of mexican cartels
which have gotten in on the avocado
industry by demanding part of the
profits as protection money
we imagine that chipotle hopes that you
don't realize
that's where some of your money is
ending up
chipotle has a rather distressing
history with food poisoning
2015 was a particularly bad year as more
than 350 people reported getting food
poisoning after eating at chipotle that
year
with cases occurring in at least 11
different states
2017 wasn't much better as one virginia
chipotle location closed after multiple
customers reported that they'd gotten
food poisoning
after eating there in 2018 food
poisoning at chipotle was back in the
news again
as an ohio location was linked to around
700 cases
of unidentified foodborne illnesses and
was ultimately the target of lawsuits
filed by customers who needed to be
hospitalized
chipotle's food poisoning woes have
added up to a lot of pain
and suffering that the company is
literally paying for
in april 2020 chipotle agreed to settle
criminal charges brought against them by
paying a whopping 25 million dollar fine
that covered the fallout for more than 1
100 food poisoning cases spanning 2015
to 2018.
the settlement also involved chipotle
admitting that poor safety practices
such as not keeping food at the proper
temperatures
were to blame for the string of
outbreaks it was also reported that
chipotle had spent tens of millions of
dollars since 2015
upgrading its food safety equipment for
better protection for its customers
i believe this will be the safest
restaurant
to eat at in the face of constant
corporate self-promotion and sales hype
it can be hard to distinguish between
accepted reality and convenient
untruths restaurants have a habit of
saying whatever they can get away with
if it helps them sell more food and
chipotle is as guilty of this
as any others in the industry in april
2015 the company announced that its
entire menu would be gmo free
this might seem like an insignificant
declaration but as it turns out
gmos or genetically modified organisms
are a scientifically supported path
towards sustainably feeding
and growing a world population so
casually throwing a wrench in the works
by declaring a menu gmo free
is an ethically questionable act as
pointed out by the washington post
reporting
chipotle was engaging in baseless
negative propaganda
against gmos in the pursuit of profit
but for years now we've been committed
to what we call food with integrity and
so
so the removal of gmos is just a natural
evolution of that
with all the misinformation about gmos
flying around
chipotle can neatly attach its
fear-based marketing ploy onto the back
of its standard elevator pitch about
food ethics
and sustainability but the truth is that
without the continued use and
development of gmos
there may be no sustainable way to
prevent a lot of people from dying of
hunger in the near future but since
deaths don't count as losses in the end
of year financial figures
there's no clear and obvious reason for
chipotle to care
from a profit-making standpoint in 2016
chipotle tried to reverse its flagging
popularity by
introducing its first new ingredient
since 2014.
chorizo that sounds perfectly fine so
far plenty of people love a bit of spicy
chorizo
unfortunately alongside the cumin
peppers and paprika present in the new
concoction
there was also a generous serving of
coarse ground lies
or at least that's what was alleged in a
lawsuit this
accusation of dishonesty came from
chipotle's in-store advertising
appearing to claim that a burrito made
with the new ingredient would contain
just 300 calories unfortunately if you
total up the proposed ingredients using
chipotle's own calculator
the real number actually comes out to
1055 calories
chipotle responded to customers on
twitter with a half-baked apology that
wasn't
much of an apology the tweet said that
the 300 calories referred to just the
chorizo
and nothing else and that the banner was
unintentionally confusing
if that's true then chipotle has some
serious quality control issues in its
design department and we wouldn't be
surprised if someone was
fired for that blunder in january 2020
chipotle agreed to pay out 1.3 million
dollars
after being accused of routinely
violating child's labor laws
the allegations were centered around
locations in massachusetts
the chain was accused of forcing
employees under the age of 18 to work
late nights
and more hours per day and weak than is
legally allowed
the investigation into the chain's child
labor practices
took three years it was kicked off by
one 2016 complaint from an employee's
parent
who called the state's attorney
general's office after the employee was
kept at work
past midnight the investigation
confirmed that this was far from the
only instance of labor abuse
as massachusetts attorney general mara
healey noted
we hope these citations send a message
to other fast food chains in restaurants
that they cannot violate our child labor
laws and put young people at risk the
penalty was the largest child
labor-related fine in massachusetts
history
in addition to the fine chipotle also
paid out five hundred thousand dollars
for youth programs
designed to teach minors about the labor
laws in place to protect them
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