October 13, 2025 • 32 mins
The rubber meets the road in Chipotle restaurants and the whole company is focused on improving operations, Chief Brand Officer Chris Brandt tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin’ It Up podcast, Brandt sits down with BI’s senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to discuss the company’s plans to increase traffic and same-store sales. He comments on limited-time offers, Chipotle Rewards, international expansion and the power of influencer marketing.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to Chopping it Up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Mike Hamlon, the senior Restaurant and Food
Service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Our Research and that abi's
five hundred analysts around the globe can be found exclusively
on the Bloomberg terminal. If you enjoy the pod, do
me a solid and give us a five star review
on Apple or Spotify. Today we're joined by Chris Brandt,
President and Chief brand Officer at Chipotle.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Chris, Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Sure thing, man. There's been a couple of senior leadership
changes over the last year plus and they've obviously directly
impacted you and who you work with on a daily basis.
How has Scott put his stamp on the culture and
what is new COO Jason Kidds primary focus here in
his first year.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Look, I mean Scott's been around. He's been around it
to pute longer than me. I think he started in
twenty seventeen, and you know, he he was instrumental in
this brand growing. And you know, we own every restaurant,
so we're a little bit unique from a lot of
places that franchise that we own every single one, and
so it's really important, I think, to have an operator
in that CEO role here at Chipotle because we do
(01:22):
own every restaurant. We have one hundred and twenty thousand
plus employees, and he's been instrumental and I think in
setting that culture out of the field, and so he's
really steppy unfortunately for him. I think he stepped into
the CEO role at a really tough time for restaurants
in general. Really there's a lot of anxiety and trepidation
out there on behalf of consumers and that's lowered their
(01:44):
frequency in restaurants as a whole. It's a much more
compative environment here in twenty twenty five than we've had
in the previous seven years that I've been here a Chipotle.
And then Jason Kid's a new addition. He's a great
culture fit for us. He's got some great operations experience.
It's in QSR but also in retail, and I think
(02:04):
the team really likes him and he's tackling all the
right issues and he's a great guy to boot. So
I think those are you know, Scott's I think doing
a great job in his role in a really tough
environment and Jason has stepped right in and really fit
in with the field most importantly and the rest of
the management team in a great way.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It was a tough first half, you know, to your
point for the restaurant industry, fast casual and Chipotle sales,
obviously this isn't a position that you and the team
are used to. How would you characterize the attitude within
the organization right now?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
You know, I think it's pretty positive. I mean, certainly
this is these are not the results where we're hoping for.
I've seen these type of cycles and other places that
I've been and it's much more hand to hand combat
out there every week every day of trying to drive
sales versus where we had in the past. But we
have the best brand. I think we have the best food.
(03:01):
And people have asked me like, gosh, why has Chipotle
been so successful? And I'm like, hey, we have the
best product, and you know, I think this is the
way people want to eat. But there certainly is a
value component. And when you say value, I don't mean
what you get for what you pay. I think Chipotle
is a great value in that front. But people are
looking for three dollars four dollars and absolute price points,
(03:23):
and that's not a game where we typically play, so
we've had to adjust our strategy a little bit. I
think we have a lot still of upside. You know,
we still we're still building restaurants at a rapid clip.
We'll build more than three hundred restaurants this year and
you know we're about four thousand. We think we can
go to seven thousand. So the growth story is it
certainly isn't over for Chipotle. This is a little bit
(03:44):
of a hiccup in some bad times, but we're confident
we can get back on the growth train here pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Are you happy with Chipotle's value proposition following the investments
and the portion sizes and how do you think about
communicating that value to your guests?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, I think for us, we've been known for big
burritos for a long time and we are still known
for big burritos. We've we've really emphasized to our people
out in the restaurants to be generous. I mean, people
want an experience, and I think they didn't. It's interesting
that the world really changed with COVID, and I think
(04:20):
we're still adapting to that world and for us, you know,
we didn't. We had a growing, certainly growing digital business
before Covid, but now it's it's really expanded, and so
we've asked really our team members to manage a big
digital business as well as a big in restaurant business
for the last couple of years. And I think that
we we our operations are in a really good place
(04:43):
right now. I think I'm pretty confident if you go
to Chipotle, you're going to get a big old burrito.
We're going to be generous with portions, particularly on protein.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
We always have been. We have.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
You know that there's a lot of rumors out there.
It was like, oh, you changed this, You've tried to
save money. We've never changed portioning for Chipotle as a
company period. We know we have four thousand restaurants, so
some experiences are not going to be as good as
other experiences. It's look, that's not the consumer's fault. That's
our fault. We have to make sure that we give
(05:13):
a great experience. Every time. A brand is a promise.
And you know, I can talk Mike about all the
great things of all of our ingredients, our food with integrity,
and the fact that we spend half a billion dollars
more on responsibly raising ingredients versus commodity ingredients that we
could purchase, but we don't do that. That's an investment
in the food, or, as I like to say, we
put our money where your mouth is.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
But all that blows up.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
If you go to the restaurant and you don't have
a good experience, or the restaurant's dirty or whatever. So
we've really that's where the rubber meets the road is
inside the restaurant. And I know Jason's been focused on it,
I know Scott is really focused on it. Candidly, the
whole company is focused on that in restaurant experience. And
we're not going to be perfect. We're not claiming to
be perfect, but we should be better than we have been.
(05:55):
And I think we've made a lot of strides here
over the last few months. We were just looking in
some data that shows that it's starting to show in
the data in a big way. So nothing has changed.
We never tried to pull back on portions. That's not
our game. But things happen, and so we want to
make sure every experience is great. One of the crazy
things about Chipotle is I think unfortunately we get maybe
(06:18):
we get too much credit for some of the things
we do on the good side, but we certainly get
a lot of publicity on any hiccups that we have.
But hey, that's a good challenge for us to just
be better all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, similar to McDonald's and Starbucks, and.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That has its pluses and its minuses for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, no doubt, but I appreciate your transparency on that answer.
Industry wide, sauces are hot, man, and you know that
Chipotle is capitalizing on that with a Doble ranch and
red shimmuturi. Our two sauce ltos a year the right cadence,
and do you still anticipate about three protein ltos a year?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So we're a bit of a quiet period, mic.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So, I can't answer a lot of those questions directly,
but I'll say this that we've been very pleased with
the sauces versu Adobo ranch we did in the summer.
Red Chimmy Cherry is off to a great start. And
you know, I know I'm a homer for sure, but boy,
if you haven't had red chimmy chery, and it's good.
We developed it originally for Carnea soada to be an accompaniment,
but man, it is good across everything, and the consumer
(07:17):
response has been amazing. Though if somebody sent me a
note said, man, I would drink this stuff, it is
so good. And so we're really pleased with the way
that went. And I think just innovation in general, we've
really amped up in the second half of the year
here in twenty twenty five. I think you'll see a
twenty twenty six that looks more like the second half
of twenty twenty five than it did the first half.
(07:40):
Because in this environment we talked a little bit about
price point. I mean it's incumbent upon us to tell
people about our value equation of the quality ingredients, the
unprocessed food and nothing artificial nature of things.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And the best way also we.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Can bring new people into the restaurant is through innovation.
Because nothing brings either new peace people in or reminds
existing people to buy, to come again and buy more
than having new things. And so we're going to up
our innovation not only on sauces, but but I think
on ltos as well, versus where we've been at twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Nice, I'm looking forward to the red trimuturi for sure.
How do you plan to use AI to help bring
back LAPS customers.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
So, look, I think there's a lot of uses for AI,
and I don't know specifically how we're going to bring
back LAPS customers with it. We look on our loyalty,
We rely on our loyalty program, and there's a lot
of algorithms and things that are working there to try
and understand are you about to defect, have you defected,
have you swowed your purchases? And so we just had
(08:42):
a summer of extras where we really rewarded people for
higher frequency and that worked wonders for us over the summer,
So I think you'll see more of those things go on.
We've really relied on our media to be a mass
reach vehicle and our loyalty program to be our frequency vehicle.
Those things have been and tried and true for us
for the last seven eight years. I don't think that'll
(09:04):
change in the future. But you can become a little
bit more sophisticated with your targeting and things that we're doing.
AI is certainly opening up a lot of different pathways
and a lot more understanding about things. But I'll say
the big uses for AI for us are maybe things
that people don't see. You know, we have cameras inside
every restaurant where we can look at like, for example,
(09:25):
the number of staff members. One of the things that
correlates to success in the restaurant is are we fully
staffed on that line at peaks? Can we move people
through the line quickly? And so before we don't know
how many people were really there. It's a commersome process.
Now we could have AI look at the cameras and
pretty quickly they can tell you which restaurants are performing
well and which restaurants are not. I think there's a
(09:46):
lot of AI applications in our forecasting and our supply
chain and those kind of things. So maybe less sexy
than consumer communication if you ask those people in those goops,
probably not less sexy at all. But I think that
I think there's a lot of app locations there and
we're just scratching the surface.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
You mentioned Chipotle rewards. It's clearly been a standout in
the restaurant industry. Can you talk to me about Chipotle
you and what's next for the loyalty program?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yes, so, I think CHIPOTLEU is a really cool program
that's kind of an overlay of our existing rewards program
just for college students. As people might know, Chipole is
very popular in college environments, and we wanted to give
those people back a little something extra and a few
more rewards and some more customization. It also acts as
a bit of a test bed for us for things
(10:33):
that you might find on CHIPOTLEU that could eventually roll
out to a broader rewards program, So it acts pretty
cool that way. I think what you'll see from our
rewards program is more consumer engagement, for sure. I think
gamification has been successful for us with things like Chipotle IQ,
where we ask people questions and you can win Chipotle prizes,
but it gets them to know the brand a little
(10:55):
bit better, because a lot of people know things about Chipotle,
but they don't really know our values piece. The fact
that we don't have any freezers or can openers, the
fact that we do spend half a billion dollars more
on our ingredients to make sure they're responsibly raised versus
not versus just regular commodity ingredients. The fact that we're
(11:16):
the only restaurant to get an A plus from the
Humane Society and Animal wellfa our regulation. So all those
things that Chipotle IQ or the other engagement with consumers
can hopefully help you buy into our values, not just
buy Chipotle, but you'll see more on the loyalty program
of engagement. We hope to have things that track your
usage and maybe make it a little bit of a contest.
(11:37):
I remember my son is an avid Chipotle fan and
he got an email one time that said he was
in the top two percent of Chipotle users, and he
was really angry. He goes, man, I got to up
my game. What do I got to do to be
in the top one percent? So that it's those kind
of insights. We also did a tasting of a of
(11:58):
a new item in a in a city and all
the people we so we invited some of our best
loyalty members in that city just to do the tasting,
just to see what they said, and they were all like.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Am I number one? Where am I am? The top
one percent? Where am I where?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
So everybody wants to know the rank. So I think
you'll see more of that from us. There's more localization
we can do to show that you the impact that
you're having on the environment just from purchases at your restaurant.
So there's a whole host of things you'll see with loyalty,
making it more fun, making it more engaging, Maybe give
you some education about the brand, and you know there's
gonna be there's going to be more promotions and things,
(12:33):
a la summer of extras, which was so successful for
us this summer.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
My son's a big fan too, he's a high school senior.
He actually he took down a chicken burried all Adam boy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Well, we appreciate your business.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, I don't think he's in the top two percent, but.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Aspirational mic, that could be great for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
What lessons have you learned about connecting with gen Z digitally,
particularly on TikTok?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Now, I'll tell you that we've always been a brand
that's very you has a youthful mindset, and so I
think over the last seven eight years we've really taken
some of the shackles maybe that we're on our our
social program and really let them kind of use the
brand a little bit more. But I'll say over the
last couple of years, the influencers are really having a moment,
(13:20):
even influencing creative that looks like it's from an influencer,
and it's more of that one to one where somebody's
telling you something I think that has really risen to
the four in ways that it was always there, but
it wasn't as big as it is now. And so
you know, we can look at some of the creative
that we've done in digital and social even from just
(13:41):
two or three years ago, and things that were the
top performers are not the top performers now, and so
we've really we could we're constantly looking at that, constantly optimizing,
and so we can see that change of how just
that influencer voice is so important because you know, they're
like friends to so many people, and so you know,
(14:04):
the recommendation from a friend is one of the most
powerful things, and I think that's where influencers have stepped
into four. So that's the biggest change that I've seen. Certainly,
these platforms like TikTok and Instagram and reels and those
things have gotten much bigger and they're a great way,
I think, and people were substituting it. Young people especially
are using those as substitutes for TV. They are really
(14:26):
engaged on those. The number of hours that they're spending
on those platforms is pretty frightening. But from a marketing standpoint,
it certainly is an opportunity, but you better engage with
them in the right way, and you better have the
right way in because you will get called out on
it in a second. And we're fortunate here to have
a great team that does social They can really find
a lot of insights, and we look for things and
(14:50):
how to participate in things that are sort of the
intersection of Chipotle and culture. And so a great example
is we did a promotion early this year on Friday
the thirteenth around tattoos, and so in the tattoo community,
Friday the thirteenth is a big date.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I did not know this, but we picked it up
in the social channels.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
We did a buy one, get one offer for one
hour in the restaurants are Friday the thirteenth, and it
was an overwhelming success. Now the insight was back at
the suit I think it was Super Bowl. I think
it was a Super Bowl. In twenty nineteen, Maroon five
was a performer when Adam Levine took off his shirt.
He has a lot of tattoos, and someone posted that
(15:33):
Adam Levine's body looks like a Chipotle bag, and so
we ran with that. We reposted it and it blew up.
It went viral at a second, and so we've always
had this kind of affinity for the tattoo community because
of that looks like a Chipotle bag and the busy
writing and stuff that we have on there. And so
that that insight, that evergreen insight, kind of led us
(15:56):
to Friday the thirteenth. And I remember when the team
came to me and said, hey, did you know Friday
the thirteenth big in the tattoo community. I don't have
any tattoos, so I did not know this, but it
turned into one of the best promos we've ever done,
and the engagement in social the engagement inside the restaurant
was amazing. So it shows how you got to have
(16:16):
your pulse on what's going on in culture and then
think about how does it apply to your brand and
what's the unique way in for your brand. That was
very unique for us, that whole Chipotle back Tattoo thing.
We made it really fun. We had multidimensions to it.
But it's a great example of kind of looking at
culture and find and getting onto something that's happening out
(16:37):
there and making it big and making it your own.
And you know, we've done that with National Burrito Day.
Wasn't a thing before Chippote started doing it. National Avocado Day,
that's our jam right with in late July. And so
we've made those we call them almost their holidays that
chip we call them Chapote Days. But we've really made
(16:57):
those into cultural moments that we can continue to take
it vantage of year after year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it's so important to listen on social media and
listen to your fans.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And showing off some of your social media creators and
your super fans on a TV ad was was pretty cool.
Even though I can't get down with a triple wrap burrito,
you know, that would go right to my head, I think,
But you know, it highlights your point about how important
influencer marketing is and has become. So what are some
(17:26):
of the other ways you're leveraging them.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So we've done that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
We leverage them at almost all of our product launches
certainly have an influencer component we put there there. We
were one of the first companies to really put your
your order is a very individual thing, like you, as
a Chipotle fan, will know that it's very individual. One
of the best pieces of swag we ever sold were
customized T shirts you just put your order on the
(17:52):
T shirt itself, and so we know how personal that
is online almost any other place, and so we started
putting people's orders inside our app, and so you can
actually order what, you know, what this particular influencer has,
or this athlete has or whatever what they what they
get every day. And so that's been a way we've
(18:12):
really from Gosh, we'd started doing that years and years ago,
and those have been really successful for us. It's a
great way to experience the same thing your influencer does,
and it's really attractive for them too. I mean, they
become you know, Instagram famous, right if you will, by
having their Chipotle order in the app, and it's a
point of pride. And I think the other big thing
(18:33):
for us is we're only interested in working with people
who are already big Chipotle fans. We're not trying to
convert somebody who doesn't like Chipotle or introduce somebody who
doesn't like Chipotle. The beauty is we have a lot
of athletes that do it. We have a platform called
Real Food for Real Athletes, where we want to be
the training table for athletes of all ages and abilities
(18:56):
throughout the country. And because that's actually what they do.
There's a number of athletes who have writers in their
contract that when they go on the road, they're going
to eat Chipotle. We know some major sports teams put
Chipotle on their jets when they're going to games. We
know this is how they eat and so, and the
(19:16):
beauty of it is is whether you're trying to gain weight,
whether you're trying to cut weight, whether you're trying to
be whole thirty, whether you're trying to be vegan, whether
you're trying to be high protein, you can eat it
really easily at Chipole, so it's very customizable. So there's
a lot of nutritionists at universities that actually use Chipole
on the road because they can give each person their
own order. And by the way, it tastes great, so
(19:37):
it's not doesn't feel like a penalty. So we try
to promote those things as much as we can, and
it's like, this is the real food that real athletes
really eat. We've had Team Chipotle for the Olympics, We've
had Team Chipote for other things of various athletes who
now being in their twenties, they've grown up with Chipotle.
We have some great photos where they took their own
(19:57):
from their own photo library when they were eight or
ten years old, going to Chipotle all the time. So
that's been a really fun thing for us to engage
with too. So there's a lot of different ways I
think we use that to your point, use that Chipotle
fandom as a as a beacon for good and as
certainly as a as proof that you know, this is
where those people really eat. We're not trying to, you know,
(20:18):
pull one over on you that so and so you know,
eats at this particular place, but even though everybody knows
they don't eat any bread. So that's that's the opposite
of what we're trying to do. We really try to
be authentic at every touch point that we have.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, it's critical because because you know, authenticity, it really
shines through, you know, and people can tell when people
are real super fans and really love the brands.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that's free.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
In the second quarter earning's call, Scott mentioned some of
the recent innovations made to the mobile app to remove
friction from the customer experience.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
What were those changes?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
So there are some things that are sort of more
behind the scenes that might affect iOS in particular, or
an Android Android platform. In particular, we rolled out a
new updated beginning of the year. There were some older
versions that it wasn't as compatible for us for with
at iOS. We had some just hiccups from a technology standpoint.
(21:14):
The good news is most of those things are sorted
and so that's a big part. But we also added,
you know, we added tiles to the to the app
where you can scroll through so we can put more
customized offer We could put more personalized offers in there.
We can show you how many reward points you have available.
We can show you if you have a reward available.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We can.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
You know, drive awareness to our lt O s, to
new things like our new sauces, to digital only items
like Case of DIA. We just did a free case
idea for national Case of da day, so we can
do all kinds of those things in the app that
we weren't able to do before and kind of all
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
So it's it's certainly has been a win for US.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
International expansion is of growing importance right now. How are
you and the marketing team adapting the brand menu and
message to the international markets.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So our biggest one that we have right now is Europe,
and we've got a new business leader in Europe and
she's just done a terrific job for us. But in Europe,
you know, we're small. I mean, we have about twenty
five restaurants or so, mostly in the UK, but we
have a couple in Germany and a cup and six
in France. We are really going back to the beginning
(22:23):
kind of at Chipotle. People just a lot of there
certainly is a lot of brand recognition of Chipotle from
people who've been to America and Americans that.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Are over there.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
But for a lot of people, is this, how do
we distinguish ourselves as not just another American fast food brand,
but really bring our food ethos there. So we've gone
back into some of the archives when they first first
launched Chipotle here and used a lot of clever one liners,
right like this isn't this is real food fast not
(22:52):
fast food, and those kind of things to really introduce
Chipotle to people from the beginning so they don't associate
just us with everybody else. Our launch in the Middle
East has been an overwhelming success. Some of those restaurants
are just doing you know, forty and fifty thousand dollars
per day when they roll out. So it's been incredible,
(23:13):
and you know, we've signed on some new partners in
Asia as well as in Mexico, and so we're very
excited about the globalization of Chipotle. We want that experience
at Chipotle in those places to be just like the
one you'll have here in the United States. One of
the hardest things for us, Mike, is really getting the
food supply chain because of our food with integrity, because
(23:34):
we don't use any artificial flavors, colors, or ingredients.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Or any of those things.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
It's hard to get that stood up in a lot
of places, and Europe has been hard to mimic exactly
what we're doing here, but in different plants. With sometimes
sight we modified ingredients. For example, most of the avocados
in Europe do not come from Mexico or where we
source some here in the United States, and so they
can be a little different. So how do you adapt
(23:59):
the recipe because there's real cooking going on in our restaurants,
there's really fresh food, making sure that all is happening
in the right way in other countries can be a challenge,
and so we think we've got that stood up really
nicely in the Middle East, We've got it stood up
much better than it has been in Europe, and so
we're very excited about the global nature and making this
(24:22):
brand not just an iconic brand in America, but an
iconic brand globally as well.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And so the difficulties with the supply chain, does that
make you more inclined to continue to franchise new markets?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Not necessarily. I think it's a market by market determination.
For a place like the Middle East, you really need
a partner, and we have a great partner there that
can get you into the malls. Everybody's that I'm all
there because it's so hot, you have to have people there.
We don't necessarily need a franchise partner in places like Europe,
so we will own our restaurants there, but we'll be
(24:56):
adaptive to the different markets and where we think that
a franchise agreement can add some value, and we make
sure we're only working with the best, the people that
know how to do this, that want the brand for
the right reasons, for its brand ethos, and that are
like minded about that brand ethos and can deliver what
we think will be a great Chipote product. So our
(25:18):
business model will vary depending on where we go. Some
will own, some will franchise, some will do some hybrid
of both, but that will be a market by market determination.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What would you say to investors that are concerned about
Chipotle's ability to return to consistent mid single digit teams
store sales growth.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
I mean, I would say, look, this is a tough environment,
maybe the toughest environment for fast casual that's been around
in a while. Every other time, chipotlet, every brand has
its ups and downs over it's I think we were
founded in nineteen ninety three, so we're on thirty two
years now. Every time there's been a hiccup, we've come
out of it stronger. I don't see why this is
this one will be any different. I will stress there's
(25:59):
no fundamental problem with our brand here. This isn't a
food safety issue like we've had in the past. This
is more macro driven. Are there things we can do better? Sure,
we will work on that hard. I think we've got
a great and talented team here from a management standpoint
as well as all the way through the organization, much
better than we had in the past. And so I
(26:20):
would just let history be your guide that you know
we'll get right back up and keep on humming. And
I don't see any impediment to our growth. And there's
no fundamental problem wrong with Chipotle. This is more of
a macro driven problem than anything else.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, the team obviously has a phenomenal track record. And
I got a chance to listen to Scott on a
fireside chat at the Prosper conference in August, and I
was very impressed.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
He's a great ambassentor for the brand for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Selfishly, I know beef prices are kind of high now,
but when are're bringing brisket back.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
So you know, we'll keep our is very close to
the best. Brisket is one of my favorites that we've
ever done. You know, if I were wagering, and I'm not,
I would say that you know, you might see that
sometime in twenty twenty six, but we'll just have to
see how things play out. It is to your point,
the beef prices are extraordinary and brisket is certainly we
(27:19):
almost buy. One of the challenges for Chipotle as we've
gotten more and more restaurants, so now we're at four
thousand restaurants, is getting enough supply to meet the demand
that we have, and so the amount of brisket in
a particular animal is pretty small. So we are almost
in our food with integerty requirements and our animal welfare
(27:41):
requirements mean only about five percent of the beef in
America qualifies to be for Chipotle. So one of the
biggest challenges for us in a program like brisket is
just getting enough raw material and can we have enough brisket?
Can we source enough that meets our food with integery
requirements to meet twelve or fifteen week limited time offer timeline.
(28:03):
So our supply chain team scours the globe for folks
that have like minded animal welfare requirements to make sure
we can source that. But it is it is a
challenge for sure. It is a precious ingredient and I
think it tastes that way, which is why people love it.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I'm gonna have to check and see if brisket in
twenty twenty six is on polymarket.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
You have to read so what's your go to order?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
My go to So mine kind of changes around a
little bit, But right now I'm back on burritos. I mean,
I think there's nothing better than one of our big
but I was doing bowls for a long time. But
I have a bowl every Monday. We have Chipotle here
at our headquarters offices every Monday, so I always get
a bowl there. But when I'm in the wild on
my own, I get a burrito, a little bit of
(28:51):
white rice, black beans, chicken, I have cheese, I have
picodagayo or mild salsa, and of course have to have guak.
And all that wrapped up is great. One one pro tip.
A lot of people put all of the you know,
all of the sauces and stuff on there. So they'll
put pico, and they'll put hot sauce, and they'll put
(29:13):
corn on there, and it's great if you want to
load it up, awesome, But the original design for Chipotle
was to have like one of those sauces. And there
are one or two of those sauces, so you might
try it sometime if you're a Chipotle user, Hey, just
pick one or two. You'll find the flavors really shine
through a little bit more. The brito might stay a
little bit hotter, too, So pro tip, just one or
(29:35):
two sauces rather than mowd them all in.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
But hey, if you like.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Them all, you know what the beauty of Chipotle is
you could have it exactly how you want and you
don't have to listen to anybody about what's the best.
But that's a pro tip. Maybe just one or two instead.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Of them all. I no doubt I'll have to, you know,
I usually I go just hot sauce, but I'm not
gonna lie. You've got me hooked on the spunke Chipotle Tabasco,
so you know that's got to go on well.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And you know, if you haven't tried the red chimnychurity
that comes on the side, so you can you can
meter that out however you want, and it is absolutely
great on any protein. Put it on chicken, put it
on whatever. That red Timmy Chery sauce is certainly something
you should miss. The other one is our build your
own Chipotle, So we designed that so we saw the
(30:19):
insight was there's a lot of people wanted something that
they could have for small groups. Particklar dinners at night
and our building own Chipotle. You can order it right
off the app and it's for four to six people.
It's a it's a it's an abundant amount of food.
So if you just have four or five people, you
certainly will have leftovers. It's like a mini Chipotle line.
Everyone who tries it loves it, and so you can
(30:41):
order it right in our app It is really an
outstanding product and gives everybody, lets them build.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Their own right at home.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
For I think it's like fifty sixty bucks, so you're
feeding at least six people for that much.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's a great value too.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, and I guess you know it's it's a good
way to expand your catering business, right which I think
is a point of focus right now.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, catering.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
So you know we have one of the challenges with
catering is right now for so catering would be for
you know, ten people or more. It's a challenge for
the restaurants to get when you have to order twenty
four hour advance. That's to allow our restaurants because of
our fresh ingredients, because of our fresh supply chain, we
need to make sure we have enough food for them
(31:29):
to be able to make it in the restaurants. And
so we love our catering business. We're testing some different
technologies that allow us us that will allow us to
expand it a lot more, a lot more than we
have right now because we're sort of under index and
catering I think could be a whole other growth layer
for us, because there's nothing like bringing that full Chipotle
line to your house, which is really what catering is about.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Man, everybody loves that.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
But this four to six people build your own Chipotle
is a great way to start good stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I think we'll wrap it up there. Thanks for doing this, Chris.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I want to thank the audience for tuning in. If
you liked our conversation, please share it with your friends
and colleagues. Check back soon for a discussion about California's
Senate proposal requiring restaurants to labor major food allergens with
Dylan McDonald and Erica Anderman of Fudini
Welcome to Chopping it Up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Mike Hamlon, the senior Restaurant and Food
Service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Our Research and that abi's
five hundred analysts around the globe can be found exclusively
on the Bloomberg terminal. If you enjoy the pod, do
me a solid and give us a five star review
on Apple or Spotify. Today we're joined by Chris Brandt,
President and Chief brand Officer at Chipotle.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Chris, Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Sure thing, man. There's been a couple of senior leadership
changes over the last year plus and they've obviously directly
impacted you and who you work with on a daily basis.
How has Scott put his stamp on the culture and
what is new COO Jason Kidds primary focus here in
his first year.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Look, I mean Scott's been around. He's been around it
to pute longer than me. I think he started in
twenty seventeen, and you know, he he was instrumental in
this brand growing. And you know, we own every restaurant,
so we're a little bit unique from a lot of
places that franchise that we own every single one, and
so it's really important, I think, to have an operator
in that CEO role here at Chipotle because we do
(01:22):
own every restaurant. We have one hundred and twenty thousand
plus employees, and he's been instrumental and I think in
setting that culture out of the field, and so he's
really steppy unfortunately for him. I think he stepped into
the CEO role at a really tough time for restaurants
in general. Really there's a lot of anxiety and trepidation
out there on behalf of consumers and that's lowered their
(01:44):
frequency in restaurants as a whole. It's a much more
compative environment here in twenty twenty five than we've had
in the previous seven years that I've been here a Chipotle.
And then Jason Kid's a new addition. He's a great
culture fit for us. He's got some great operations experience.
It's in QSR but also in retail, and I think
(02:04):
the team really likes him and he's tackling all the
right issues and he's a great guy to boot. So
I think those are you know, Scott's I think doing
a great job in his role in a really tough
environment and Jason has stepped right in and really fit
in with the field most importantly and the rest of
the management team in a great way.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It was a tough first half, you know, to your
point for the restaurant industry, fast casual and Chipotle sales,
obviously this isn't a position that you and the team
are used to. How would you characterize the attitude within
the organization right now?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
You know, I think it's pretty positive. I mean, certainly
this is these are not the results where we're hoping for.
I've seen these type of cycles and other places that
I've been and it's much more hand to hand combat
out there every week every day of trying to drive
sales versus where we had in the past. But we
have the best brand. I think we have the best food.
(03:01):
And people have asked me like, gosh, why has Chipotle
been so successful? And I'm like, hey, we have the
best product, and you know, I think this is the
way people want to eat. But there certainly is a
value component. And when you say value, I don't mean
what you get for what you pay. I think Chipotle
is a great value in that front. But people are
looking for three dollars four dollars and absolute price points,
(03:23):
and that's not a game where we typically play, so
we've had to adjust our strategy a little bit. I
think we have a lot still of upside. You know,
we still we're still building restaurants at a rapid clip.
We'll build more than three hundred restaurants this year and
you know we're about four thousand. We think we can
go to seven thousand. So the growth story is it
certainly isn't over for Chipotle. This is a little bit
(03:44):
of a hiccup in some bad times, but we're confident
we can get back on the growth train here pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Are you happy with Chipotle's value proposition following the investments
and the portion sizes and how do you think about
communicating that value to your guests?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, I think for us, we've been known for big
burritos for a long time and we are still known
for big burritos. We've we've really emphasized to our people
out in the restaurants to be generous. I mean, people
want an experience, and I think they didn't. It's interesting
that the world really changed with COVID, and I think
(04:20):
we're still adapting to that world and for us, you know,
we didn't. We had a growing, certainly growing digital business
before Covid, but now it's it's really expanded, and so
we've asked really our team members to manage a big
digital business as well as a big in restaurant business
for the last couple of years. And I think that
we we our operations are in a really good place
(04:43):
right now. I think I'm pretty confident if you go
to Chipotle, you're going to get a big old burrito.
We're going to be generous with portions, particularly on protein.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
We always have been. We have.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
You know that there's a lot of rumors out there.
It was like, oh, you changed this, You've tried to
save money. We've never changed portioning for Chipotle as a
company period. We know we have four thousand restaurants, so
some experiences are not going to be as good as
other experiences. It's look, that's not the consumer's fault. That's
our fault. We have to make sure that we give
(05:13):
a great experience. Every time. A brand is a promise.
And you know, I can talk Mike about all the
great things of all of our ingredients, our food with integrity,
and the fact that we spend half a billion dollars
more on responsibly raising ingredients versus commodity ingredients that we
could purchase, but we don't do that. That's an investment
in the food, or, as I like to say, we
put our money where your mouth is.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
But all that blows up.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
If you go to the restaurant and you don't have
a good experience, or the restaurant's dirty or whatever. So
we've really that's where the rubber meets the road is
inside the restaurant. And I know Jason's been focused on it,
I know Scott is really focused on it. Candidly, the
whole company is focused on that in restaurant experience. And
we're not going to be perfect. We're not claiming to
be perfect, but we should be better than we have been.
(05:55):
And I think we've made a lot of strides here
over the last few months. We were just looking in
some data that shows that it's starting to show in
the data in a big way. So nothing has changed.
We never tried to pull back on portions. That's not
our game. But things happen, and so we want to
make sure every experience is great. One of the crazy
things about Chipotle is I think unfortunately we get maybe
(06:18):
we get too much credit for some of the things
we do on the good side, but we certainly get
a lot of publicity on any hiccups that we have.
But hey, that's a good challenge for us to just
be better all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, similar to McDonald's and Starbucks, and.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That has its pluses and its minuses for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, no doubt, but I appreciate your transparency on that answer.
Industry wide, sauces are hot, man, and you know that
Chipotle is capitalizing on that with a Doble ranch and
red shimmuturi. Our two sauce ltos a year the right cadence,
and do you still anticipate about three protein ltos a year?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So we're a bit of a quiet period, mic.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So, I can't answer a lot of those questions directly,
but I'll say this that we've been very pleased with
the sauces versu Adobo ranch we did in the summer.
Red Chimmy Cherry is off to a great start. And
you know, I know I'm a homer for sure, but boy,
if you haven't had red chimmy chery, and it's good.
We developed it originally for Carnea soada to be an accompaniment,
but man, it is good across everything, and the consumer
(07:17):
response has been amazing. Though if somebody sent me a
note said, man, I would drink this stuff, it is
so good. And so we're really pleased with the way
that went. And I think just innovation in general, we've
really amped up in the second half of the year
here in twenty twenty five. I think you'll see a
twenty twenty six that looks more like the second half
of twenty twenty five than it did the first half.
(07:40):
Because in this environment we talked a little bit about
price point. I mean it's incumbent upon us to tell
people about our value equation of the quality ingredients, the
unprocessed food and nothing artificial nature of things.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And the best way also we.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Can bring new people into the restaurant is through innovation.
Because nothing brings either new peace people in or reminds
existing people to buy, to come again and buy more
than having new things. And so we're going to up
our innovation not only on sauces, but but I think
on ltos as well, versus where we've been at twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Nice, I'm looking forward to the red trimuturi for sure.
How do you plan to use AI to help bring
back LAPS customers.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
So, look, I think there's a lot of uses for AI,
and I don't know specifically how we're going to bring
back LAPS customers with it. We look on our loyalty,
We rely on our loyalty program, and there's a lot
of algorithms and things that are working there to try
and understand are you about to defect, have you defected,
have you swowed your purchases? And so we just had
(08:42):
a summer of extras where we really rewarded people for
higher frequency and that worked wonders for us over the summer,
So I think you'll see more of those things go on.
We've really relied on our media to be a mass
reach vehicle and our loyalty program to be our frequency vehicle.
Those things have been and tried and true for us
for the last seven eight years. I don't think that'll
(09:04):
change in the future. But you can become a little
bit more sophisticated with your targeting and things that we're doing.
AI is certainly opening up a lot of different pathways
and a lot more understanding about things. But I'll say
the big uses for AI for us are maybe things
that people don't see. You know, we have cameras inside
every restaurant where we can look at like, for example,
(09:25):
the number of staff members. One of the things that
correlates to success in the restaurant is are we fully
staffed on that line at peaks? Can we move people
through the line quickly? And so before we don't know
how many people were really there. It's a commersome process.
Now we could have AI look at the cameras and
pretty quickly they can tell you which restaurants are performing
well and which restaurants are not. I think there's a
(09:46):
lot of AI applications in our forecasting and our supply
chain and those kind of things. So maybe less sexy
than consumer communication if you ask those people in those goops,
probably not less sexy at all. But I think that
I think there's a lot of app locations there and
we're just scratching the surface.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
You mentioned Chipotle rewards. It's clearly been a standout in
the restaurant industry. Can you talk to me about Chipotle
you and what's next for the loyalty program?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yes, so, I think CHIPOTLEU is a really cool program
that's kind of an overlay of our existing rewards program
just for college students. As people might know, Chipole is
very popular in college environments, and we wanted to give
those people back a little something extra and a few
more rewards and some more customization. It also acts as
a bit of a test bed for us for things
(10:33):
that you might find on CHIPOTLEU that could eventually roll
out to a broader rewards program, So it acts pretty
cool that way. I think what you'll see from our
rewards program is more consumer engagement, for sure. I think
gamification has been successful for us with things like Chipotle IQ,
where we ask people questions and you can win Chipotle prizes,
but it gets them to know the brand a little
(10:55):
bit better, because a lot of people know things about Chipotle,
but they don't really know our values piece. The fact
that we don't have any freezers or can openers, the
fact that we do spend half a billion dollars more
on our ingredients to make sure they're responsibly raised versus
not versus just regular commodity ingredients. The fact that we're
(11:16):
the only restaurant to get an A plus from the
Humane Society and Animal wellfa our regulation. So all those
things that Chipotle IQ or the other engagement with consumers
can hopefully help you buy into our values, not just
buy Chipotle, but you'll see more on the loyalty program
of engagement. We hope to have things that track your
usage and maybe make it a little bit of a contest.
(11:37):
I remember my son is an avid Chipotle fan and
he got an email one time that said he was
in the top two percent of Chipotle users, and he
was really angry. He goes, man, I got to up
my game. What do I got to do to be
in the top one percent? So that it's those kind
of insights. We also did a tasting of a of
(11:58):
a new item in a in a city and all
the people we so we invited some of our best
loyalty members in that city just to do the tasting,
just to see what they said, and they were all like.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Am I number one? Where am I am? The top
one percent? Where am I where?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
So everybody wants to know the rank. So I think
you'll see more of that from us. There's more localization
we can do to show that you the impact that
you're having on the environment just from purchases at your restaurant.
So there's a whole host of things you'll see with loyalty,
making it more fun, making it more engaging, Maybe give
you some education about the brand, and you know there's
gonna be there's going to be more promotions and things,
(12:33):
a la summer of extras, which was so successful for
us this summer.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
My son's a big fan too, he's a high school senior.
He actually he took down a chicken burried all Adam boy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Well, we appreciate your business.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, I don't think he's in the top two percent, but.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Aspirational mic, that could be great for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
What lessons have you learned about connecting with gen Z digitally,
particularly on TikTok?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Now, I'll tell you that we've always been a brand
that's very you has a youthful mindset, and so I
think over the last seven eight years we've really taken
some of the shackles maybe that we're on our our
social program and really let them kind of use the
brand a little bit more. But I'll say over the
last couple of years, the influencers are really having a moment,
(13:20):
even influencing creative that looks like it's from an influencer,
and it's more of that one to one where somebody's
telling you something I think that has really risen to
the four in ways that it was always there, but
it wasn't as big as it is now. And so
you know, we can look at some of the creative
that we've done in digital and social even from just
(13:41):
two or three years ago, and things that were the
top performers are not the top performers now, and so
we've really we could we're constantly looking at that, constantly optimizing,
and so we can see that change of how just
that influencer voice is so important because you know, they're
like friends to so many people, and so you know,
(14:04):
the recommendation from a friend is one of the most
powerful things, and I think that's where influencers have stepped
into four. So that's the biggest change that I've seen. Certainly,
these platforms like TikTok and Instagram and reels and those
things have gotten much bigger and they're a great way,
I think, and people were substituting it. Young people especially
are using those as substitutes for TV. They are really
(14:26):
engaged on those. The number of hours that they're spending
on those platforms is pretty frightening. But from a marketing standpoint,
it certainly is an opportunity, but you better engage with
them in the right way, and you better have the
right way in because you will get called out on
it in a second. And we're fortunate here to have
a great team that does social They can really find
a lot of insights, and we look for things and
(14:50):
how to participate in things that are sort of the
intersection of Chipotle and culture. And so a great example
is we did a promotion early this year on Friday
the thirteenth around tattoos, and so in the tattoo community,
Friday the thirteenth is a big date.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I did not know this, but we picked it up
in the social channels.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
We did a buy one, get one offer for one
hour in the restaurants are Friday the thirteenth, and it
was an overwhelming success. Now the insight was back at
the suit I think it was Super Bowl. I think
it was a Super Bowl. In twenty nineteen, Maroon five
was a performer when Adam Levine took off his shirt.
He has a lot of tattoos, and someone posted that
(15:33):
Adam Levine's body looks like a Chipotle bag, and so
we ran with that. We reposted it and it blew up.
It went viral at a second, and so we've always
had this kind of affinity for the tattoo community because
of that looks like a Chipotle bag and the busy
writing and stuff that we have on there. And so
that that insight, that evergreen insight, kind of led us
(15:56):
to Friday the thirteenth. And I remember when the team
came to me and said, hey, did you know Friday
the thirteenth big in the tattoo community. I don't have
any tattoos, so I did not know this, but it
turned into one of the best promos we've ever done,
and the engagement in social the engagement inside the restaurant
was amazing. So it shows how you got to have
(16:16):
your pulse on what's going on in culture and then
think about how does it apply to your brand and
what's the unique way in for your brand. That was
very unique for us, that whole Chipotle back Tattoo thing.
We made it really fun. We had multidimensions to it.
But it's a great example of kind of looking at
culture and find and getting onto something that's happening out
(16:37):
there and making it big and making it your own.
And you know, we've done that with National Burrito Day.
Wasn't a thing before Chippote started doing it. National Avocado Day,
that's our jam right with in late July. And so
we've made those we call them almost their holidays that
chip we call them Chapote Days. But we've really made
(16:57):
those into cultural moments that we can continue to take
it vantage of year after year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, it's so important to listen on social media and
listen to your fans.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And showing off some of your social media creators and
your super fans on a TV ad was was pretty cool.
Even though I can't get down with a triple wrap burrito,
you know, that would go right to my head, I think,
But you know, it highlights your point about how important
influencer marketing is and has become. So what are some
(17:26):
of the other ways you're leveraging them.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So we've done that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
We leverage them at almost all of our product launches
certainly have an influencer component we put there there. We
were one of the first companies to really put your
your order is a very individual thing, like you, as
a Chipotle fan, will know that it's very individual. One
of the best pieces of swag we ever sold were
customized T shirts you just put your order on the
(17:52):
T shirt itself, and so we know how personal that
is online almost any other place, and so we started
putting people's orders inside our app, and so you can
actually order what, you know, what this particular influencer has,
or this athlete has or whatever what they what they
get every day. And so that's been a way we've
(18:12):
really from Gosh, we'd started doing that years and years ago,
and those have been really successful for us. It's a
great way to experience the same thing your influencer does,
and it's really attractive for them too. I mean, they
become you know, Instagram famous, right if you will, by
having their Chipotle order in the app, and it's a
point of pride. And I think the other big thing
(18:33):
for us is we're only interested in working with people
who are already big Chipotle fans. We're not trying to
convert somebody who doesn't like Chipotle or introduce somebody who
doesn't like Chipotle. The beauty is we have a lot
of athletes that do it. We have a platform called
Real Food for Real Athletes, where we want to be
the training table for athletes of all ages and abilities
(18:56):
throughout the country. And because that's actually what they do.
There's a number of athletes who have writers in their
contract that when they go on the road, they're going
to eat Chipotle. We know some major sports teams put
Chipotle on their jets when they're going to games. We
know this is how they eat and so, and the
(19:16):
beauty of it is is whether you're trying to gain weight,
whether you're trying to cut weight, whether you're trying to
be whole thirty, whether you're trying to be vegan, whether
you're trying to be high protein, you can eat it
really easily at Chipole, so it's very customizable. So there's
a lot of nutritionists at universities that actually use Chipole
on the road because they can give each person their
own order. And by the way, it tastes great, so
(19:37):
it's not doesn't feel like a penalty. So we try
to promote those things as much as we can, and
it's like, this is the real food that real athletes
really eat. We've had Team Chipotle for the Olympics, We've
had Team Chipote for other things of various athletes who
now being in their twenties, they've grown up with Chipotle.
We have some great photos where they took their own
(19:57):
from their own photo library when they were eight or
ten years old, going to Chipotle all the time. So
that's been a really fun thing for us to engage
with too. So there's a lot of different ways I
think we use that to your point, use that Chipotle
fandom as a as a beacon for good and as
certainly as a as proof that you know, this is
where those people really eat. We're not trying to, you know,
(20:18):
pull one over on you that so and so you know,
eats at this particular place, but even though everybody knows
they don't eat any bread. So that's that's the opposite
of what we're trying to do. We really try to
be authentic at every touch point that we have.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, it's critical because because you know, authenticity, it really
shines through, you know, and people can tell when people
are real super fans and really love the brands.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that's free.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
In the second quarter earning's call, Scott mentioned some of
the recent innovations made to the mobile app to remove
friction from the customer experience.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
What were those changes?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
So there are some things that are sort of more
behind the scenes that might affect iOS in particular, or
an Android Android platform. In particular, we rolled out a
new updated beginning of the year. There were some older
versions that it wasn't as compatible for us for with
at iOS. We had some just hiccups from a technology standpoint.
(21:14):
The good news is most of those things are sorted
and so that's a big part. But we also added,
you know, we added tiles to the to the app
where you can scroll through so we can put more
customized offer We could put more personalized offers in there.
We can show you how many reward points you have available.
We can show you if you have a reward available.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We can.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
You know, drive awareness to our lt O s, to
new things like our new sauces, to digital only items
like Case of DIA. We just did a free case
idea for national Case of da day, so we can
do all kinds of those things in the app that
we weren't able to do before and kind of all
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
So it's it's certainly has been a win for US.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
International expansion is of growing importance right now. How are
you and the marketing team adapting the brand menu and
message to the international markets.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So our biggest one that we have right now is Europe,
and we've got a new business leader in Europe and
she's just done a terrific job for us. But in Europe,
you know, we're small. I mean, we have about twenty
five restaurants or so, mostly in the UK, but we
have a couple in Germany and a cup and six
in France. We are really going back to the beginning
(22:23):
kind of at Chipotle. People just a lot of there
certainly is a lot of brand recognition of Chipotle from
people who've been to America and Americans that.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Are over there.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
But for a lot of people, is this, how do
we distinguish ourselves as not just another American fast food brand,
but really bring our food ethos there. So we've gone
back into some of the archives when they first first
launched Chipotle here and used a lot of clever one liners,
right like this isn't this is real food fast not
(22:52):
fast food, and those kind of things to really introduce
Chipotle to people from the beginning so they don't associate
just us with everybody else. Our launch in the Middle
East has been an overwhelming success. Some of those restaurants
are just doing you know, forty and fifty thousand dollars
per day when they roll out. So it's been incredible,
(23:13):
and you know, we've signed on some new partners in
Asia as well as in Mexico, and so we're very
excited about the globalization of Chipotle. We want that experience
at Chipotle in those places to be just like the
one you'll have here in the United States. One of
the hardest things for us, Mike, is really getting the
food supply chain because of our food with integrity, because
(23:34):
we don't use any artificial flavors, colors, or ingredients.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Or any of those things.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
It's hard to get that stood up in a lot
of places, and Europe has been hard to mimic exactly
what we're doing here, but in different plants. With sometimes
sight we modified ingredients. For example, most of the avocados
in Europe do not come from Mexico or where we
source some here in the United States, and so they
can be a little different. So how do you adapt
(23:59):
the recipe because there's real cooking going on in our restaurants,
there's really fresh food, making sure that all is happening
in the right way in other countries can be a challenge,
and so we think we've got that stood up really
nicely in the Middle East, We've got it stood up
much better than it has been in Europe, and so
we're very excited about the global nature and making this
(24:22):
brand not just an iconic brand in America, but an
iconic brand globally as well.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And so the difficulties with the supply chain, does that
make you more inclined to continue to franchise new markets?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Not necessarily. I think it's a market by market determination.
For a place like the Middle East, you really need
a partner, and we have a great partner there that
can get you into the malls. Everybody's that I'm all
there because it's so hot, you have to have people there.
We don't necessarily need a franchise partner in places like Europe,
so we will own our restaurants there, but we'll be
(24:56):
adaptive to the different markets and where we think that
a franchise agreement can add some value, and we make
sure we're only working with the best, the people that
know how to do this, that want the brand for
the right reasons, for its brand ethos, and that are
like minded about that brand ethos and can deliver what
we think will be a great Chipote product. So our
(25:18):
business model will vary depending on where we go. Some
will own, some will franchise, some will do some hybrid
of both, but that will be a market by market determination.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What would you say to investors that are concerned about
Chipotle's ability to return to consistent mid single digit teams
store sales growth.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
I mean, I would say, look, this is a tough environment,
maybe the toughest environment for fast casual that's been around
in a while. Every other time, chipotlet, every brand has
its ups and downs over it's I think we were
founded in nineteen ninety three, so we're on thirty two
years now. Every time there's been a hiccup, we've come
out of it stronger. I don't see why this is
this one will be any different. I will stress there's
(25:59):
no fundamental problem with our brand here. This isn't a
food safety issue like we've had in the past. This
is more macro driven. Are there things we can do better? Sure,
we will work on that hard. I think we've got
a great and talented team here from a management standpoint
as well as all the way through the organization, much
better than we had in the past. And so I
(26:20):
would just let history be your guide that you know
we'll get right back up and keep on humming. And
I don't see any impediment to our growth. And there's
no fundamental problem wrong with Chipotle. This is more of
a macro driven problem than anything else.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, the team obviously has a phenomenal track record. And
I got a chance to listen to Scott on a
fireside chat at the Prosper conference in August, and I
was very impressed.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
He's a great ambassentor for the brand for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Selfishly, I know beef prices are kind of high now,
but when are're bringing brisket back.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
So you know, we'll keep our is very close to
the best. Brisket is one of my favorites that we've
ever done. You know, if I were wagering, and I'm not,
I would say that you know, you might see that
sometime in twenty twenty six, but we'll just have to
see how things play out. It is to your point,
the beef prices are extraordinary and brisket is certainly we
(27:19):
almost buy. One of the challenges for Chipotle as we've
gotten more and more restaurants, so now we're at four
thousand restaurants, is getting enough supply to meet the demand
that we have, and so the amount of brisket in
a particular animal is pretty small. So we are almost
in our food with integerty requirements and our animal welfare
(27:41):
requirements mean only about five percent of the beef in
America qualifies to be for Chipotle. So one of the
biggest challenges for us in a program like brisket is
just getting enough raw material and can we have enough brisket?
Can we source enough that meets our food with integery
requirements to meet twelve or fifteen week limited time offer timeline.
(28:03):
So our supply chain team scours the globe for folks
that have like minded animal welfare requirements to make sure
we can source that. But it is it is a
challenge for sure. It is a precious ingredient and I
think it tastes that way, which is why people love it.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I'm gonna have to check and see if brisket in
twenty twenty six is on polymarket.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
You have to read so what's your go to order?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
My go to So mine kind of changes around a
little bit, But right now I'm back on burritos. I mean,
I think there's nothing better than one of our big
but I was doing bowls for a long time. But
I have a bowl every Monday. We have Chipotle here
at our headquarters offices every Monday, so I always get
a bowl there. But when I'm in the wild on
my own, I get a burrito, a little bit of
(28:51):
white rice, black beans, chicken, I have cheese, I have
picodagayo or mild salsa, and of course have to have guak.
And all that wrapped up is great. One one pro tip.
A lot of people put all of the you know,
all of the sauces and stuff on there. So they'll
put pico, and they'll put hot sauce, and they'll put
(29:13):
corn on there, and it's great if you want to
load it up, awesome, But the original design for Chipotle
was to have like one of those sauces. And there
are one or two of those sauces, so you might
try it sometime if you're a Chipotle user, Hey, just
pick one or two. You'll find the flavors really shine
through a little bit more. The brito might stay a
little bit hotter, too, So pro tip, just one or
(29:35):
two sauces rather than mowd them all in.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
But hey, if you like.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Them all, you know what the beauty of Chipotle is
you could have it exactly how you want and you
don't have to listen to anybody about what's the best.
But that's a pro tip. Maybe just one or two instead.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Of them all. I no doubt I'll have to, you know,
I usually I go just hot sauce, but I'm not
gonna lie. You've got me hooked on the spunke Chipotle Tabasco,
so you know that's got to go on well.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And you know, if you haven't tried the red chimnychurity
that comes on the side, so you can you can
meter that out however you want, and it is absolutely
great on any protein. Put it on chicken, put it
on whatever. That red Timmy Chery sauce is certainly something
you should miss. The other one is our build your
own Chipotle, So we designed that so we saw the
(30:19):
insight was there's a lot of people wanted something that
they could have for small groups. Particklar dinners at night
and our building own Chipotle. You can order it right
off the app and it's for four to six people.
It's a it's a it's an abundant amount of food.
So if you just have four or five people, you
certainly will have leftovers. It's like a mini Chipotle line.
Everyone who tries it loves it, and so you can
(30:41):
order it right in our app It is really an
outstanding product and gives everybody, lets them build.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Their own right at home.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
For I think it's like fifty sixty bucks, so you're
feeding at least six people for that much.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's a great value too.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, and I guess you know it's it's a good
way to expand your catering business, right which I think
is a point of focus right now.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, catering.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
So you know we have one of the challenges with
catering is right now for so catering would be for
you know, ten people or more. It's a challenge for
the restaurants to get when you have to order twenty
four hour advance. That's to allow our restaurants because of
our fresh ingredients, because of our fresh supply chain, we
need to make sure we have enough food for them
(31:29):
to be able to make it in the restaurants. And
so we love our catering business. We're testing some different
technologies that allow us us that will allow us to
expand it a lot more, a lot more than we
have right now because we're sort of under index and
catering I think could be a whole other growth layer
for us, because there's nothing like bringing that full Chipotle
line to your house, which is really what catering is about.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Man, everybody loves that.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
But this four to six people build your own Chipotle
is a great way to start good stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I think we'll wrap it up there. Thanks for doing this, Chris.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I want to thank the audience for tuning in. If
you liked our conversation, please share it with your friends
and colleagues. Check back soon for a discussion about California's
Senate proposal requiring restaurants to labor major food allergens with
Dylan McDonald and Erica Anderman of Fudini
Host
Michael Halen
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.