In another move towards sustainable practices in the restaurant industry, Chipotle Mexican Grill, the fast-casual chain famous for oversized burritos made with fresh ingredients, recently started buying sustainably-raised pork from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Chipotle’s Charlottesville, VA stores. Chipotle projects that Polyface will be able to supply 100% of the pork needed for the Charlottesville market. Polyface, profiled in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is considered the benchmark standard of sustainable animal agriculture agriculture and gives true credibility to Chipotle’s corporate mission to leave a lighter footprint.
The partnership comes on the heels of almost a year and a half of complex negotiations involving equipment needs, recipes, and transportation issues. Salatin found that his fine-dining clients, snapped up the choice cuts of pork he had to offer, but the market was not as strong for tougher cuts, such as shoulders and legs. These tough cuts are perfect for the braising method used in carnitas pork for burritos.
Although the partnership was a lengthy process, Chipotle is no stranger to looking for vendors using more sustainable methods. They’ve been buying pork from since 2000, creating a demand which allowed Niman to expand from 75 small farms to 500. According to their website, all meat served in their restaurants are antibiotic and hormone-free and are all vegetarian-fed. 25% of their beans are grown organically, and their sour cream is rBGH-free. Trying to rethink their sourcing towards sustainability, (and effectively, reimage how large-scale chains do business) aligns Chipotle’s mission with that of Polyface, who have been rejecting conventional notions of industrial agriculture since 1961.
Despite the higher cost (and effort) behind integrating Polyface pork, Chipotle refused to pass their costs on to the consumer–their carnitas burrito remains $5.75 in Charlottesville. And for those who want to lighten their food footprint even more (but can’t resist Chipotle’s burritos), Chipotle has plenty of vegetarian and vegan options on their menu.
Kelli Best-Oliver
A former high school teacher, I'm currently a part-time writer/full-time doctoral student at the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities, studying leadership in education from a critical pedagogy perspective along with public policy. On the green side, I'm interested in local food and agriculture (Iowa girl, born and raised), sustainability education, DIY projects, and grassroots activism. I'm slowly turning my South City, St Louis home into an urban farmstead. On the hoping-to-be-greener side, I love reading, yoga, soccer, music, backpacking, knitting, pop culture and trivia, my Tuesday Night Dinner Club, traveling, Guitar Hero, dive bars, and sitting on front porches with my husband and a cold beer. I came to Green Options via a post on Sustainablog,working the St Louis angle to get Jeff to let me in. I have a personal blog chronicling (what else?) life in South St. Louis. Follow me on Twitter!
4 Responses to Chipotle Partners With Polyface For Sustainable Burritos
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[...] was a big hit with consumers–particularly the better cuts. The tougher cuts were harder to sell, so he’s selling them to Chipotle, who uses them in burritos, because shoulders and legs hold up well to the braising process [...]
Nate–You’re right about beef being a bigger problem. Chipotle already has standards in place about beef–they call them “food with integrity” standards. The claim no hormones or antibiotics in their beef, and their beef is raised in an all-vegetarian diet: basically the “natural” claim as opposed to organic or local. I read an internet rumor that they were looking into local, organic cheese, so I can’t imagine that they’re not looking to locally source beef. What they’ve done with pork is show that local sourcing can be done, it just has to be done incrementally.
To me, I really don’t think it is greenwashing–I think Chipotle is really making an effort to be sustainable on a large scale.
What about having more responsible beef practices? I think pork is probably less popular a choice than beef, and beef is a bigger environmental problem anyways, isn’t it?
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