Chipotle has come under fire over claims it has become stingy with its portion sizes.
The burrito giant has been accused of cutting everything from beans and vegetables to its high-value protein items like chicken, steak and carne asada.
The result: a trend in which several TikTok users have now claimed to get larger portions by filming their servers, implying that under the pressure of a mobile phone camera lens, Chipotle employees are more generous.
DailyMail.com decided to investigate, shopping at two branches of the fast-food burrito chain in midtown Manhattan, filming one location and respecting the privacy of the other.
“Filming does not result in larger portions,” a Chipotle PR representative said, after TikTok users began filming waiters taking their orders. DailyMail.com has now investigated two locations of the fast-food burrito chain in Manhattan (our weight test is pictured above)
For more than two months, a war has been raging between Gen Z influencers and TikTok users on one side and Chipotle staff on the other over the new, supposedly stingier portions.
Although our data collection efforts fell far short of the standard of true scientific research, our test yielded results that no “life hack” advocate saw coming.
DailyMail.com placed identical orders of chicken and steak burritos at both locations in an effort to compare and contrast their portions by weight.
For the chicken burrito bowl, every possible vegetable topping was requested, in addition to beans and hot sauce, including “fajita”-style roasted peppers and onions.
For the steak dish, the fajita vegetables were omitted and cheese was added to the mix.
Contrary to the claims of numerous passionate Chipotle consumers on TikTok, the total weight of the burrito bowls was actually lighter at the location where we filmed—about one to two ounces each.
A likely explanation for these inverse results was made public by Atulya Dora-Laskey, a Chipotle employee who works at a store in Lansing, Michigan.
“We actually serve lighter portions, because we don’t want to be on record as violating Chipotle’s portion policy,” Dora-Laskey said. The Guardian in June.
“You could get in trouble with your boss for giving a customer too much food,” he explained, as the corporate franchise has strict official guidelines on portion sizes.
| meal | by registered server | by unregistered server | by corporate portion guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| chicken burrito bowl | 26.90 ounces | 28.15 ounces | 26 ounces |
| steak burrito bowl | 25.05 ounces | 28.80 ounces | 25 ounces |
Chipotle has been under fire for issues surrounding the sizes of its online and in-store orders that are different from each other.
Chipotle employees’ “pocket guide to portion sizes,” leaked to Reddit two years ago, actually shows what the mandatory proportions should be for each burrito ingredient.
Using those tables, the DailyMail.com chicken bowl and steak bowl ingredients and this guide helped us evaluate what the weight of our burrito bowls should have been.
The chicken burrito bowl should have weighed 26 ounces.
The beef burrito bowl, with fewer vegetables and a 1-ounce serving of cheese, would be expected to weigh 25 ounces.
These numbers are so close to the service recorded at the Chipotle location for these bowls that the experiment lends credibility to Dora-Laskey’s claims.
Chipotle’s “pocket crew guide to portion sizes,” leaked to Reddit two years ago (above), does indeed show, both visually and by ounce, what the mandatory proportions are for each burrito ingredient as dictated by Chipotle’s corporate office.
“You could get in trouble with your boss for giving a customer too much food,” Chipotle worker Atulya Dora-Laskey said. She said recording the video will likely result in less food for the customer, “because we don’t want it to be recorded that we’re violating Chipotle’s ratio policy.”
Chipotle’s official guideline estimates for portion sizes are so close to the weights provided by our Chipotle’s video recording service that the experiment lends credence to Dora-Laskey’s claims. Above, one of our experimental chicken burritos, ready to eat.
DailyMail.com’s burrito bowl results also matched weight figures reported by a much more comprehensive study of 75 orders from the chain, conducted by Wells Fargo analysts on a lark.
Analysts said Barronesaveraged about 21.5 ounces, several ounces below DailyMail.com’s orders, but close.
The largest burrito bowl sourced by the team, led by Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem, weighed 27 ounces, while the smallest weighed just 14 ounces.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem set out to test the theory that Chipotle’s branch sizes are shrinking.
Fadem’s team ordered and weighed its 75 test bowls at 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.
Some places served bowls that weighed up to 33 percent more than others, the study found.
The frenzy over Chipotle portion sizes appears to have begun in earnest in early May, thanks to Keith Lee, a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic.
Lee posted a video to his more than 16 million followers on the app that appeared to show the influencer eating a burrito and not finding any of the chicken he had 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 demanding more rice and chicken.
“I couldn’t let (the employee) ‘disrespect me with that size of protein,'” Francis captioned his video.
In late May, as the intensity of this TikTok debate reached a fever pitch, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol appeared on camera to deny that portion sizes had gotten smaller.
Jewel Diaz, whose TikTok username is @jeweldiaz, posted a video on April 8 showing off her large bowl of Chipotle food while sitting in her car.
Other TikTok users have shared their own experiences ordering food from Chipotle, with some claiming to be past or current employees of one of its locations.
“We always want to give people big portions so they get excited about the food,” he said. he told Fortune.
“It’s kind of who we are,” the CEO said, adding that anyone could ask for more than one favorite burrito topping at the chain.
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.”
He also denied that the company had changed its portion sizes.
Company spokesperson addresses TikTok’s ‘life hack’ said to New York Timesin no uncertain terms: “Filming does not result in larger portions.”
DailyMail.com’s analysis, backed by candid disclosures from Chipotle staff and a review of the 75-burrito bowl by the Wells Fargo team, supports the company’s claim.