Chipotle Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol appears to have seen and heard the many complaints from the franchise’s customers about their portion sizes. On an earnings call with investors on July 24, he directed attention to the company culture of “generous portions.”
According to The Hill, in the opening minutes of the call, he reminded the investors, “[T]here was never a directive to provide less to our customers. The generous portion is a core brand equity of Chipotle. It always has been, and it always will be. With that said, getting the feedback caused us to relook at our execution across our entire system with the intention to always serve our guests delicious, fresh custom burritos and bowls with generous portions.”
Niccol’s comments came well after many social media users made a running gag about how servers at the chain have not served enough meat for years. Those complaints have received more attention recently after internet food critic Keith Lee posted a Tik-Tok video in May detailing a quesadilla hack at Chipotle that went viral wherein Lee half-jokingly asked, “Where’s the chicken?”
That same month, following Lee and other social media users documenting instances where they believed servers were less than generous with their portions, Niccol defended the restaurant to Fortune while insisting and demonstrating that customers can give their servers a look if they were unsatisfied with their portions at Chipotle.
According to The Hill, on the earnings call, Niccol did admit that portions were inconsistent but said that approximately 10% of the company’s restaurants needed to be retrained or recoached per Chipotle’s standards.
“To be more consistent across all 3,500 restaurants, we have focused on those with outlier portion scores based on consumer surveys, and we are reemphasizing training and coaching around ensuring we are consistently making bowls and burritos correctly,” Niccol said.
Niccol continued, saying that positive customer feedback on and offline would suffice to get the word out about the changes at some of its chains.
“Look, I’m already seeing it in social media, people commenting on the burritos, the bowls that they’re getting,” Niccol said. “And, you know, I think that the best source of marketing is word of mouth, as people have these experiences with Chipotle.”
Although the company has raised prices in recent years, investors indicated on the call that there are currently “no plans” to increase prices further as Chipotle has posted an 11% increase in sales during its last quarter, which NPR reported was driven by stores being faster and more efficient in addition to its limited-time chicken al pastor promotion.
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