Paradise Kitchen

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

As demonstrated in Exhibit 1 on page 143, the company’s total revenue increased from $1.085.782 million dollars to $3.214.591 million dollars in less than seven years. Beginning at the end of 2007 through the end of 2013, Chipotle’s Mexican Grill total revenues increased at a CAGR of 19.83%. The new provided catering program, the six elements of their strategy adapted to other cuisines (ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen) and the growing number of new restaurants are decisive aspects in increasing revenue yearly.

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.

In order to distinguish itself from competitors, especially Qdoba doesn’t want to be “me-too Chipotle”, Qdoba redesigned everything includes in-store layout, new branding, and personalized service. For example, Qdoba has colorful and artistic design on the wall, seating and washroom, which creates strong visual effect of Mexican culture and makes customer feel casual and happy. As we know, Chipotle is the King of burrito, however Qdoba choose to promote variety tacos to develop it’s competitive advantage. Qdoba launched a set of six Knockout tacos on October 27th, 2015, which enriched Qdoba’s menu items and provided more options for customers. Also, Qdoba’s employees with new designed uniforms are encouraged to speak their recommendations and provide more human touch services not machine-like assembly line. “The worst thing you could hear is as server who says everything’s good.” said John Cooke, VP, menu strategy and innovation at Qdoba. Furthermore, Qdoba introduced a kid’s menu and has 24 open hours for some locations to satisfy more customer needs.

Due to the fact that Chipotle is worried about providing customers with the best possible ingredients and in the same time, concerned of taking care about environment, animals as well as farmers, which in this case, are the main suppliers, we can encapsulate Chipotle in a Sociocultural segment.

Last week I ate at Acapulco and enjoyed a delicious 12 inch Papa Burrito. The cheesy smell made my nostrils dance. The beefy aroma made my mouth water. The Chile Verde smothered on top of the burrito tingled my nose. The rice had an essence of chicken broth and all these ingredients were inside a soft flour tortilla.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is a leading force in its commitment to buy food from sustainable sources that do not have a negative impact on its menu pricing. Besides leading the way in the fast casual dining experience, it also supports farming initiatives that develop and practice best standards. Chipotle is also active in its environmental commitment to working to reduce its carbon footprint by reducing its reliance on fossil fuels through the implementation of various environmental initiatives, including green building and depending on solar power energy. It is also well known for its philanthropic activities, including its

Founded in 1993, by Steve Ells, Chipotle has been serving the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, and France for twenty-two years. The chain offers a wide variety of options to put on a burrito, bowl, burrito bowl, or tacos. You get the option of what type of meat you would like including chicken, steak, barbacoa, or pork (they also offer vegetarian options). After picking your meat, you can go down the “line” to choose your toppings. From rice, beans, lettuce, guacamole, salsa, and many more toppings, the combinations of tastes are endless!

Hispanic Americans have a strong tie to their culture and display it in their cuisine. Rice and beans are staples to la familia, together they provide a complete protein, and are inexpensive. Spicy peppers and hot sauce provide antibacterial and digestive health qualities that were imperative to provide healthy meals in Mexico because the water supply isn’t guaranteed to be safe for drinking. Historically, many tomato products were introduced to the United States by Mexico, including burritos, tacos, other Mexican cuisine and even ketchup (Sowell, 1981).

Chipotle is the leader in the fast casual market, with over 1,900 locations, $3.21 billion in annual revenue, and the ability to serve up to 300 customers an hour. It has innovated the restaurant market by providing reasonably priced scratch-made meals, containing local ingredients, all within the confines of a pleasing aesthetic environment (Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., 2014; Kaplan, 2011). To reach its success, the firm utilized architectural innovation by stealing components of various types of restaurants already in existence. The company appropriated its rapid meal preparation methods from fast food chains such Subway and Quiznos, adopted its provision of quality food from more upscale casual Mexican restaurants, and implemented a locally based supply chain similar to that seen at many local farm-to-table establishments. This convergence of different properties came together right as the millennial generation was coming of age and demand higher quality, natural, and locally sourced ingredients in meals that could receive quickly. The company has also attempted to utilize an incremental innovation approach by removing all CMO ingredients and testing new foods such as breakfast items, soup, and chorizo sausage (The Associated Press, 2015; Peterson,

The purpose of this new product expansion is to increase sales primarily. Increasing sales is very important for Chipotle and these new products can help raise revenues significantly. The project deliverables include the introduction of the project, and the implementation of the project both in the United States and then other

One can only assume that Chipotle uses concentration strategies for their corporate level strategies, because they only concentrate on the restaurant industry. Market penetration and market development is their main focus, as they are attracting new customers as they increase brand awareness through their business strategies and their “Food With Integrity” campaign, Farmed and Dangerous live action story-telling comedy series, and Cultivate Foundation, which is a non-profit organization supporting sustainable agriculture, family farming and food education, and they are expanding into new markets with international expansion, so Chipotle can continue “to change the way people think about and eat fast food” (Chipotle, 2015). Chipotle also, uses ‘product development’, but not as aggressively as market penetration. The most recent product development is a meat alternative made from tofu, called “Sofritas”. Chipotle is highly invested in Pizzeria Locale, suggesting the possibility of horizontal integration in the near future, and is using an adjacent strategy with its sister restaurant ShopHouse Southeast Asian

In July of 2007, California Pizza Kitchen (CPK), a casual dining pizzeria started in California by co-owners Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax, was faced with the decision to invest in a stock repurchase program. Led by Chief Financial Officer Susan Collyns, the financial team of CPK was reviewing the preliminary results for the second quarter to determine if the stock repurchase program would provide a significant financial leverage for the company. The goal was to determine if the company can maintain the necessary financial stability to meet the expected growth trajectory for 2008 while utilizing debt

To introduce this product to Mexico, the intention will be to craft meals that are traditional Mexican cuisine and reasonably low in cost. It will be important to use ingredients from local farmers to develop relationships within the country and to provide the service and product at the best price to build a customer base. This product seemed logical for the Mexican market when observing family eating tendencies in the culture. As a collectivist culture, Mexican families are likely to have meals together and cook at home. This product caters to this aspect and allows families to enjoy each other while making the task of cooking and planning simpler. (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.)

I believe one segment of the Chipotle customer population is the self-expression people. These people are the kind of customers that want to express their values of supporting the local farmers and the farmer’s mission of growing organic food and their way of supporting that movement is by patronizing this kind of restaurant.