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Chipotle wants customers to rest assured its portion sizes are “generous,” despite social media outcry over its allegedly shrinking serving sizes.
The burrito maker addressed the shrinkflation allegations during its second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday (Jul. 24), in which it posted a jump in sales (thanks to the reintroduction of its Chicken Al-Pastor item). Within the first five minutes of the call with investors, chief executive officer Brian Niccol acknowledged the elephant in the room.
“There was never a directive to provide less to our customers,” Niccol said. “Generous portions is a core brand equity of Chipotle. It always has been, and it always will be.”
To serve “generous portions,” that are equal, the chain conducted consumer surveys across its 3,500 U.S. locations and found that 10% or more of its restaurants were “outliers,” Niccol said. Those stores needed to be “retrained [and] re-coached,” he later added.
And so that each location is “consistently making bowls and burritos correctly,” Niccol said the chain is beefing up its digital investments to reinforce that it stands for “generous” amounts of food.
Meanwhile, chief financial officer John. R. Hartung said that Chipotle is “confident” the investment the company is making to ensure it is delivering “correct and generous portions” can be offset by efficiencies and innovation over time.
Niccol and Hartung did not provide an exact figure on those digital investments but did say that operational and supply chain efficiencies are underway.
“Generous portions is something that we don’t want to take for granted,” Hartung said. “We don’t want to take something that’s been a positive for all these years and then have it turned out to be a negative because of some of the social media comments.”
Cue in Chipotle’s “collaborative robot,” Hyphen. The “cobotic system,” which is intended to make bowls and salads while employees make burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, has been undergoing testing in California since October 2023. It’s expected to make its debut at a restaurant as early as the end of August, according to Niccol.
Separately, Chipotle’s Autocado robot will be in a restaurant later this year, a company spokesperson confirmed to Quartz.