Chipotle Still Doesn’t Know When Carnitas Will Be Available Everywhere Again

(su-lin)

It’s been nearly three months since a vendor-related issue led Chipotle to stop selling carnitas burritos at 1/3 of its stores, but the company still doesn’t know when it will be able to meet the full demand from pork fans.

“We don’t know for sure when we’ll be fully supplied again,” a spokesman for Chipotle explains to Bloomberg. “For many years, we’ve been operating in a system where the primary food supply doesn’t meet our standards.”

This is the risky road that a company like Chipotle chooses to take when it wants to be the size of a large fast food chain while offering meat that meets high standards like being free of antibiotics and from humanely treated animals.

Chipotle dumped one of its major pork vendors after learning that pigs were not being kept in conditions mandated by the burrito chain.

While Chipotle has previously had to temporarily compromise on its standards by using “conventionally” raised beef when it was unable to get a sufficient supply of antibiotic-free meat, the decision to axe carnitas from the menus of 600 Chipotle stores marked the first time the company had ever pulled a main menu ingredient.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist