Chipotle’s chief executive has responded to claims that portion sizes are shrinking amid a wave of criticism from disgruntled customers.
Brian Nicol has denied ordering staff to skimp on portions and revealed the company will implement changes to ensure satisfaction.
“First of all, there was never a directive to provide less to our customers,” Niccol said during an earnings call on Wednesday, CNN reports.
That said, receiving the feedback led us to reexamine our execution across our entire system.”
He revealed that Chipotle will retrain its staff to ensure that “generous portions” are consistent across its more than 3,500 stores.
Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol denied that portion sizes are being reduced and revealed that he will train staff to ensure consistency across his stores.
“We’re putting a new emphasis on training and coaching to ensure we’re making bowls and burritos correctly and consistently,” Niccol said.
This came after Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team set out to test the theory that Chipotle has been skimping on its typically large portions, following a series of videos posted on TikTok showing 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.
They were stunned to find huge variation between locations: some serving bowls weighed up to 33 percent more than others.
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.
Nicol was forced to respond after Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team set out to test the theory that Chipotle has been skimping on its typically large portions.
Zachary Fadem found huge discrepancies between portion sizes from one place to another
The study came 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.
In the video’s caption, she wrote that she “couldn’t allow” the employee to “disrespect me with that size of protein.”
However, employees soon responded to the “dehumanizing” trend and said that being filmed at work was causing them stress.
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.”
But Nicol said customers were free to ask for more of any ingredient, saying he wants his clientele to be “excited” about the food.
The controversy has not hurt Chipotle’s sales, however, which beat analysts’ expectations of rising about 18 percent in the second quarter.