A Wall Street analyst has decided to put an end once and for all to the debate over whether fast food portions are getting smaller.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team recently set out to test the theory that Chipotle has been skimping on its typically large portions, after a series of videos posted on TikTok showed employees barely filling their burrito bowls.
The team ordered and weighed 75 bowls from eight locations in New York City and kept the variables the same by ordering the same ingredients: white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese and lettuce. according to Barrons.
When they finally returned to their offices, they discovered that the consistency of the burrito bowls varied greatly from restaurant to restaurant.
In some places, bowls were served that weighed up to 33 percent more than others, the study found.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem set out to test the theory that Chipotle’s branch sizes are shrinking.
He and his team ordered 75 burrito bowls from eight different locations in New York City.
The largest burrito bowl the team ordered weighed 27 ounces, while the smallest weighed just 14 ounces.
Among the 75 burrito bowls handed out for Wells Fargo analysts’ lunches, the average weight was about 21.5 ounces.
Fadem’s study comes after months of TikTok users claiming that Chipotle workers were skimping on ingredients.
The trend began in early May, when Keith Lee, a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic who has more than 16 million followers on the app, posted a video showing him digging through a burrito bowl and seemingly not finding any of the chicken he ordered.
‘These portions are crazy,’ he said. he said in the video.
Later that month, another influencer, Isaac Francis, filmed himself ordering from Chipotle and indignantly asking for more rice and chicken.
She wrote in the video’s caption that she “couldn’t allow” the employee to “disrespect me with that size of protein.” According to The Guardian.
The study came after months of TikTok users claiming that Chipotle workers were skimping on ingredients.
That video apparently started a trend of people filming Chipotle workers as they filled their burrito bowls.
In one of those videos, an employee can be seen refusing to fill the bottom of a container.
He then added just “eight pieces of meat,” according to the video, in which the creator can be heard saying: “You gotta be kidding me bro. You gotta put more in.”
But amid the fervor, chief executive Brian Niccol denied that portion sizes were getting smaller.
“We always want to give people big portions so they get excited about the food,” he said. he told Fortune.
“It’s part of who we are,” the CEO continued, saying that if someone wanted more of any ingredient, they could simply ask for it.
Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s director of corporate affairs, He also told CNN that bowl sizes can vary depending on the amount of ingredients the customer chooses or if they choose to make any ingredients “light” or “extra light.”
She also denied that the company had changed its portion sizes.
Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol has denied that portion sizes are getting smaller
But Chipotle employees have said there could be a number of reasons why customers are receiving less food, with one telling the Guardian that she is inclined to give smaller portions to customers who film her.
“We actually serve smaller portions because we don’t want to be seen as violating Chipotle’s portion policy,” Atulya Dora-Laskey said.
“You could get in trouble with your boss for giving too much food to a customer,” he explained.
At other times, customers may receive less food if the restaurant starts running out of an ingredient.
Dora-Laskey said the company has been experiencing staffing shortages and that it could take “quite a while” to produce a new protein if there are too few employees scheduled for a given day.
“Once you run out of chicken or any other meat a customer orders, it can take 20 to 40 minutes until you get more, which means there will be a lot of angry customers,” he said.
“So you’ll probably do everything you can to give them the smallest portion possible.”
Despite the frustrations, Chipotle racked up $9.9 billion in revenue last year and saw sales grow 7 percent in the most recent quarter.
It is now surpassing rivals such as McDonalds, with more than 3,400 stores across the United States and a total market value of $86 billion.
