Chipotle Swot Analysis

Chipotle saw an opportunity in the fast-casual restaurant industry and launched an innovative concept. It believes that fresh and quality ingredients are key and that customers are willing to pay more for such ingredients. To ensure such ingredients, Chipotle uses a large amount of organic food in their restaurants. This not only creates fresher and healthier food options for consumers, but also assists local farms that supply the organic food. Not only does Chipotle use organic food, but it uses produce that is in season. This reduces the costs of transporting produce and ensures that the ingredients are fresh. While competitors attempt to replicate the menu, style, and flavors of Chipotle, they do not have the resources to use organic ingredients as efficiently as Chipotle does. This is one strength of

In 2012, the restaurant industry was a $435 billion dollar industry (Tristano, 2013).This amounts to a very large market that Chipotle has the opportunity to capture. In that same year the casual Mexican restaurant market totaled a whopping $31 billion in sales (Tristano, 2013). This was a 13% increase for the casual Mexican restaurant market and only amounted to 7% of the entire restaurant market. According to Tristano’s (2013) research, Chipotle Mexican Grill was the second fastest growing fast casual restaurant of all the fast casual restaurant markets in 2012.

One of Chipotle’s significant core competencies is to offer premium quality food at a low cost. In 2003 to 2004 Chipotle decided to obtain locally grown produce and meat from farms with high animal welfare standards. Farmers who followed the guidelines set forth by the Department of Agriculture’s were Chipotle’s priority suppliers to fulfill their “Food with Integrity” campaign. Providing a close business relationship with these farmers has enabled both Chipotle and the farmers to have a competitive advantage over their competition. Chipotle has found their customers appreciate a restaurant with strong food ethics. Chipotle is currently leading the way for fast-casual dining especially since the trend in North America is for better healthier ingredients.

During his visit, Ellis learned that raising livestock without traditional farming practices produces better tasting meat. After discovering this, Ellis wanted to serve food to customers within his restaurants that are only organically produced by suppliers who conduct humane sustainable practices with their animals. The growing concern for where the company food comes from and how suppliers grow their livestock and crops caused Ellis to create the company’s philosophy “Food with Integrity” to guide future company operations. However, the company quest for having a higher quality of food comes at a higher cost in food supply. In order to offset these costs, Chipotle raised the price of some of their meat items by $1 or $2 (Pederson).. Sales continued to rise to a total of $131.6 million besides the sudden price hike because customers could taste difference in their food and loved how the company changed their recipe. In 2005, McDonalds decided to sell their stake in Chipotle and focus on their core business operations. The next year, the company became public and sold 7.88 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange (Pederson). Since ending their relationship with McDonalds, the company has been able to open over 800 stores including one Toronto, Canada during the year 2008. Expansion of new stores caused sales in 2009 to increase 14 percent to $1.52 billion and

Since 1993, Chipotle has made it their mission to use high quality farm produced products to serve quality “food with integrity” (). In accordance to their 2015 annual report, Chipotle had a net income of $475 million, along with revenues of about $4.5 billion (). Within twenty-three years since the company began, Chipotle now has restaurants all over the world, including “Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and over 1500 others in the United States” (). “During 2014, Chipotle even opened nearly 200 new locations bringing the 2013 total of 1500 up to 1700 total worldwide locations” ().

Chipotle's burrito is meant to match taste for non-Hispanic white and people that have embraced a healthier way of life and spending. They are purchasing less, and are searching for more prominent quality in their buys. In today's economy, fiscally careful purchasers are searching for more noteworthy worth with a right mix of item quality and great service at a reasonable cost. Chipotle makes a sound pattern by serving high quality food at moderate costs. This pattern has prompted new markets to those purchasers that are searching for fast food with a sound viewpoint. Chipotle has made a society that influences society's conduct towards solid sustenances and natural fixings. Chipotle has great awareness toward their natural ingredients and practices that bolster environmental sustainability for their organic ingredients and meats. Chipotle's statement of purpose aims to respond to its customer’s interest for more quality at reasonable

Since 1993, Chipotle has opened more than 400 stores, and plan to continue to grow and opening more stores. Though they have not reached a global level they continue to reach to that goal. With the growth they were having they said it would be around 40,000 people to staff in its restaurants. He’s focus to not only grow but to help the economy. “Not only are more job opportunities opening up, but Chipotle is also continuing to set a great example for other food companies, that naturally-raised meat, hormone-free food and organic produce can be used for large chain restaurants”. (Ells)

This leads to lots of opportunities for the company. Chick-fil-A could bring a plan to expand into the foreign markets. Chick-fil-A is such a strong company; they would not have a problem with a huge movement out of the country like this. Chick-fil-A could start by expanding into more airports around the world. This is the least risky way for a fast food joint to expand globally because the company can still take sales from the same customers that are travelling. Also the company would first want to enter into the European countries because their food likings are most similar to the United States. Some of the African and Asian food likings are quite a bit different if you compare them to the United States. Also Chick-fil-A was going to expand they could expand more in the current nation they are in. In the United States most of the Chick-fil-As re in the southern part of country. Chick-fil-A was founded in the south and expanded mostly in this part. People all over the United States eat chicken, so if Chick-fil-A were to expand into the northern part, they could capture more customers. Chick-fil-A was having lots of financial backing for this expansion though more franchise owners. All of these opportunities would greatly benefit the company as a whole, leading to more

Chipotle Mexican Grill was a concept turned reality by a gentleman by the name of Steve Ells. Chipotle Mexican Grill provides excellent Mexican cuisine driven by a concept of “Food with Integrity”. The first chipotle Mexican grill was opened in 1993 in Denver Colorado. By the end of 1995 there were three. In 1996 alone, Steve Ells opened five more Denver-area restaurants growing by a total of eight stores in three years. By 1998 Chipotle Mexican Grill was showing much promise. In order to meet their growth needs Chipotle took on outside investors.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. is a “fast-food service restaurant” under limited service category. It was formed in 1993 and went public in 2006. It has the largest market share in the Mexican-type food segment with a net income of more than

Chipotle’s main focus in marketing is in the United States but follows the same model in the international market. It has never been Chipotles intention to “put its stamp on a bunch of restaurants around the world”, but their vision as a company is to change the way people think about and eat fast food, which they feel the “other guys” are not focusing on, (Van Tan, n.d.). With this mindset, Chipotle believes there’s certainly room for them to build that position in other countries as it has been successful in the U.S., (Van Tan, n.d.). In the London market Chipotle followed the same model as in the United States about the brand and its grassroots marketing efforts to the streamlined menu to the assembly line operations, (Van Tan, n.d.). Chipotle executives’ views are that it doesn’t need to be any different going into Europe as it will all be the same. Chipotle is about simplicity, after all, (Van Tan, n.d.). From the start the London store focused on building management potential in its own employees. Management and personnel from the company travelled to London to open and train new Chipotle team members how to do things the Chipotle way, (Van Tan, n.d.). Chipotle strives to promote from within and with 80% of management staff coming from internal sources this is obvious, (Van Tan, n.d.). Developing their own people and moving them to manage other

Changes in customer preferences, general economic conditions, discretionary spending priorities, demographic trends, traffic patterns and the type, number and location of competing restaurants have a moderate effect on the restaurant industry (Chipotle, 2010). One example of customer preferences being a driver in the industry is the “Whole Food-ism Movement” which has put a large focus on organic, antibiotic-free, and non-processed foods (Mansolillo, 2007). Consumers now look for healthier options when eating and an overall healthier lifestyle. Chipotle has been able to benefit from this movement by carrying on their “Food with Integrity” mission (Chipotle, 2010).

As Chipotle began to grow and expand, Steve took the initiative to learn about the way most of the food in the US is produced and processed. He was quite disturbed when he discovered that pigs were raised in confinement, produce was grown on factory farms with very little respect for the environment and dairy cows were confined and injected with hormones (Ells). This experience prompted Steve to meet with ranchers and

Chipotle Mexican Grill is an American restaurant chain that currently has more than 1700 locations, with most of its locations in the U.S. and several in Canada and Europe. Chipotle has been gradually expanding its international presence since it opened its first location outside the U.S., in Toronto in 2008 (International Strategy, 2015). The restaurant now has 17 locations outside of the U.S. including locations in London, Paris, and Frankfurt. However, like all other international corporations, Chipotle strives to grow its business even further and extend global awareness of its brand. The next step in Chipotle’s global strategic plan would be to venture into new waters and enter Asia. Hence, Chipotle is now analyzing the decision of expanding operations into China.

CMO Mark Crumpacker stated, fast-food marketing typically is a game of trying to obscure the truth; The more people know about fast-food, the less interest they’d want to be a customer. Chipotle’s mission statement “Food with Integrity” reflects its focus on fresh ingredients; great food with a socially responsible message made them one of the first organic oriented fast-food restaurant