Today, founder and co-CEO Steve Ells spoke at a briefing for US Senators and their staffs about how Chipotle is changing the way people think about and eat fast food. We believe our Food With Integrity mission is the cornerstone for this effort. Below is the transcript of his talk for your viewing pleasure. I think it …is a great read for how and why we got where we are today with Food With Integrity. - Colin
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AMTA Senate Briefing
Steve Ells Remarks
March 2, 2010
Thank you for joining us today, and for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I’m Steve Ells, and I am the founder, chairman and co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, a national chain of about 1,000 restaurants that is changing the way people think about and eat fast food.
We are doing this in a lot of ways, but none more important to me than our quest to serve the best tasting food we can, made from ingredients from more sustainable sources. We call this commitment “Food with Integrity.”
Through this pursuit, we are serving more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant company. All of this meat comes from animals that are raised in a humane way, and never given antibiotics or added hormones.
We have chosen this path because we believe food made with these premium quality ingredients, from more sustainable sources tastes better. But there are other benefits as well. We believe that food raised this way is better for the environment, better for the welfare of the animals, and better for the farmers who raise the animals and grow the produce.
While it costs more to serve food made from these better ingredients, we made the decision early on that we would fight hard to find efficiencies in other areas of our business, so we could afford to buy food made from sustainable sources, without charging premium prices to our customers. It’s an important part of our company’s vision not only to serve food made from these better ingredients, but also to make it affordable so it is accessible to everybody.
I won’t tell you it was easy, but we’re showing that it can be done. Our food costs are among the highest in the restaurant industry, yet our prices are about the same, or lower than our competitors, and our business has been successful. Our entire company, including over 20,000 employees, as well as our suppliers, are proud to serve food raised with without exploiting animals or the environment. We are committed to doing even more in the future, always looking for opportunities to get better.
We began our quest for better ingredients more than a decade ago, when there was little attention paid to issues associated with food and how it is raised. At that time, I was working on improving some of our recipes.
Through that process, I spent a lot of time learning about how pigs are raised, and how that can influence the taste of the meat. I read an article in a newsletter called The Art of Eating about the farms of Niman Ranch, a small group of hog farmers in Iowa that was raising pigs in a more traditional way – on open pasture or in deeply bedded barns, and without the use of antibiotics or added hormones.
I loved the Niman Ranch story and ordered samples of their pork. It was amazing. The flavor, the texture, the eating qualities; it was excellent. I visited these farms to see for myself how the hogs were raised. A sign at one of the farms said “Pork Utopia” and it was. The pigs were living as nature intended – they were able to root and roam and socialize. It was a way of farming that was easy to appreciate, right from the beginning.
I also visited the confinement farms that raise the vast majority of pigs in this country and I was horrified by what I saw. These confined animals have no access to the outdoors, and sometimes spend their lives in cages so small they couldn’t turn around. There was an odor that was sickening, making it hard to breath. The waste from the hogs was collected in huge lagoons, where it has potentially negative impacts on the environment and the surrounding communities. It was horrific. And these farms account for 95% or more of the pork that Americans eat.
Seeing this, I knew right away that I did not want my success, or Chipotle’s success to be tied to this kind of exploitation. So I began pursuing a different path.
I started serving naturally raised pork from Niman Ranch in all of our restaurants – about 60 at the time. My decision was not rooted in science, or studies on the use of antibiotics in hogs, or in environmental assessments on the impact of large-scale industrial farming. It was based on a philosophical belief that animals should not be forced to live in horrific conditions.
After making that decision to serve naturally raised pork in all of our restaurants, we started to serve a lot more pork. People loved it. It was then that I had an epiphany that fresh was not enough anymore. Chipotle had always used fresh ingredients to make our food. But if you want to serve the best tasting food you can, it’s important to understand how animals are raised and how vegetables are grown, as these variables impact on the taste of the food.
Since that time, we have been on a journey to find more sustainable sources for all of the ingredients we use in our restaurants. And we have made considerable progress.
Today, we serve more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant company – more than 70 million pounds this year alone – including 100% of our pork, 100% of our chicken, and more than 60% of our beef. We are also the only national restaurant company with significant commitments to local and organic produce, and we were the first in our category to serve dairy (for us, that’s cheese and sour cream) made with milk from cows that are not treated with the synthetic hormone rBGH.
We have built our business around our commitment to Food with Integrity, which has led to a successful business without exploitation. In fact, the Wall Street Journal said that Chipotle “has arguably become the most successful fast-food chain in recent years by rejecting almost every major technique on which the industry was built.”
Of the things we have rejected, I am most proud of our decision to reject meat from animals that are raised in conditions that necessitate the use of antibiotics.
There is more work to be done and challenges certainly remain. While Chipotle is doing our part, others resist, claiming that it is too difficult or too costly to change their practices. I hope that Chipotle will serve as example to others of how this can be done.
Passage of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act will expedite this transition to a better meat supply and, hopefully, serve as a catalyst for others to review all of their food supply practices just as we have chosen to do on our own. Perhaps then, other companies will find what we have found: That you can work to make a better food chain, and still run a successful business.
Thank you for your interest in this important cause. And thank you for allowing me to speak here today.
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I add spinach to many of my dishes. I should try this one.
