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Ay, caramba! Chipotle is running low on natural chicken, particularly at its restaurants in Southern California, reports the Orange County Register. This is a pretty big deal. After all, the chain likes to tout that its ingredients are a cut above your average fast-food fare, and let's be honest: to a certain crowd, part of the appeal of Chipotle is the side dish of sanctimony you get to enjoy as you imagine the chicken that's now the star of your burrito clucking around some bucolic barnyard somewhere while its KFC-destined kin were shivering in a cage waiting for their next mega-dose of antibiotics.
A spokesman for Chipotle told the Register that the chain had experienced a "disruption" in its supply of naturally raised chicken but that it's working to resolve the problem. There was no explanation as to why, all of a sudden, naturally raised chickens are in short supply. Alas, apparently the country doesn't keep a strategic reserve of the cluckers like it does for oil.
Later in the day, the same spokesman issued another statement, basically saying that the shortage demonstrates just how tough it is to be virtuous in a cutthroat world, calling it "a challenge...to source better ingredients from more sustainable sources when you are dealing on such a large scale." He said that currently, about 75 percent of all Chipotle's chicken is naturally raised but that "we are working hard to get back to 100 percent."
Ok, which begs the question: just what does "naturally raised" mean, anyway?
Chipotle has just one paragraph of explanation on its website, stating that its goal is to have all its chickens raised without the use of antibiotics or "additional additives." (Which suggests, of course, that they hadn't managed to meet this goal yet even before the big shortage.)
And get ready for the big disillusion: there's no mention at all of any happy clucking around a barnyard somewhere.
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4-27-2011 @11:31AM John said... I'm an organic vegetable farmer, but for a time I worked on a farm that did a lot of pastured livestock. Beef, pork, poultry, even goats and ducks, we had it all. I didn't really know much about what went on with the livestock, since they hired me to grow vegetables for them, but I do know that chicken eat a lot of grain, and when the price of grain goes up, the price of chicken goes up. Just about every farmer growing grain in the United States has got some ill news on their mind, whether it's all that flooding up north, or the record-breaking droughts down here in Texas.
Yeah, it's probably just the cost of feed. Even if chickens are free-range, you have to give them some sort of feed to supplement their diet, and if you're a farmer raising poultry even a small commercial scale then chances are it's going to be grain. As a farmer, if I had 20 people wanting my product, but only could supply enough of it to 10 buyers, then I'm going to target the high-end restaurants and grocery stores. Chipotle would be pretty close to the bottom of the list.
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4-27-2011 @11:37AM Plucker said... See what happens when you use free-range chicken? We all know how difficult it is to herd chickens.
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4-27-2011 @7:22PM M said... And here Steve + Curtis Stone were saying on America's Next Great Restaurant "Stephanie, you can't use ordinary meat when you're promising sustainable, ethically raised meats." Oh, the irony.
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4-27-2011 @3:26PM Kevin said... LOL..."side dish of sanctimony". Didn't think I was all "puffed up" because I didn't want my chicken that way!!!! Choicing to eat healthy to be healthy is just that....a choice.
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4-27-2011 @3:31PM J.Foobar said... This is actually brilliant marketing by Chipotle. First, it's free press for Chipotle and a reminder to newspaper (and now Slashfood) readers that they use high-quality ingredients. Second, it may create an increase in sales since consumers desire items they perceive to be in short supply more, often outside the legitimate bounds of logic. Third, it enhances Chipotle's scrupulous image among consumers as they admitted publicly to being short on their high-quality chicken rather than just substituting normal chicken for awhile, which is what most consumers would expect the typical soulless corporation to do.
Brilliant.
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5-06-2011 @11:47AM Ibelieve said... You are exactly right!! Great publicity!
4-27-2011 @3:43PM Who Cares said... Dont know why anyone would eat at this place to begin with when the owner has been caught and is still under investigation for hiring and giving undocumented Mexicans Social Security numbers and Jobs.
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4-27-2011 @7:26PM gtoya1331 said... talk about SANCTIMONY -- your prose and last name take the cake (made with organic flour and cage-free eggs) dolt
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4-27-2011 @4:34PM doda said... It's the cost of feed corn that is now being used to power peoples gas guzzlers to haul their lard asses to juniors extra activities after school. How's that food into fuel working out for ya.
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4-27-2011 @4:39PM Larry said... Oh No ! It's the end of the world. !!! A shortage of "free range chickens" !!! Why not "clone" chickens to pair with all the "genetically modified" corn tacos, tomatoes and "radiated" sea life we have been eating ??? History be told: I'm sure we will all be glowing in the dark and be doing it for centuries thanks to the chemicals, dyes, colorings and preservatives that Dupont and Monsanto has unknowingly incorporated in our foods.
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4-27-2011 @4:57PM rainbow said... Use NEUTRICH, A lot like chicken
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4-27-2011 @5:02PM Sam said... " He said that currently, about 75 percent of all Chipotle's chicken is naturally raised but that "we are working hard to get back to 100 percent."
So, shortage or not, they will still serve chicken that is not free range. 25%.
Don't care one way or the other here, but what about the ones that walk into one of those 25% of stores to get free range chicken and are served regular KFC chicken and not even know it? I guess what you don't know won't hurt you....lol
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4-27-2011 @5:24PM Jim said... Dose anyone here know what "free range chickens" means??? They are the chickens that are in one of those building that hold 100,000 birds that has a door on the side that goes out to a 10' x10' chicken wired area of dirt (no feed-no water-no grass). Take a wild guess how many birds go out when the water and feed is on the insde? It's nothing but a buzz word.
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4-27-2011 @6:42PM Mike said... "Natural" chickens? So non-free-range chickens are artificial? And non-"organic" fruts and vegetables are what, plastic? If the English language could bring a lawsuit it would sue to stop the abuse!
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4-27-2011 @9:29PM Rogerchrane said... How convenient just as Chipotle lost their supply of illegal workers...
To the person who said Chipotle was genius for doing this, shut up, please.
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4-28-2011 @1:38AM Jan said... Aren't all chickens natural??
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4-28-2011 @4:30AM Christina said... The food used to be good but has gone down hill especially the one in A.H. The ppl who work there are rude and whats funny is even though I speak Spanish I couldn't understand a word they said. They still have long lines but I think thats b/c ppl get used to doing something and out of habit continue to do it without realizing the food doesn't taste has good or fresh, still getting charged the same price for less quality. Rip Off
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7-12-2011 @4:14PM lloyd leister said... O.K. broilers don't shiver because we have strict standards fot tempature control. They aren't kept in cages. And they aren't given large doses of medicine unless they are very sick.
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