Chipotle Mexican Grill established by Steve Ellis (1993) (Research Paper Sample)

Name
Professor
MGMT 101
Date
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill was established in the year 1993 by Steve Ellis. The company is well known for offering Mexican foods. In the beginning, Chipotle Mexican Grill was based in Denver, Colorado but it has since grown to over 1500 restaurants in the United States of America and other countries. The restaurant serves various dishes like burritos, tacos, salads in the USA and around the world. Since its establishment, Chipotle Mexican Grill has strived to provide their esteemed customers with a variety of food choices. Over the years, Chipotle Mexican Grill targets to strengthen their “food with integrity” values and ensuring that they offer the best food services for its customers.
Not long ago, the restaurant was forced to close down operations in several food outlets because of an outbreak of food-borne disease. This has affected the reputation of the company as critics are taking this opportunity to ensure that it terminates its business. Firstly, they argue that the company has failed to meet its mission statement of providing food with integrity. Thus, they raise several questions why the company did not act in real time to avert the situation which has since then affected many people. This has made it difficult for Chipotle Mexican Grill to expand into new markets and at the same time ensure it maintains its mission.
The occurrence of foodborne illnesses among Chipotle’s customers raised various questions about the restaurant’s in-house training, supply chain and food safety culture. Ingredients like responsibly raised pork, organic veggies and chicken that are free from antibiotic did not have any benefit since they were not safe for human consumption (Pullman and Wu 61). The outbreaks have made many people believe that the company’s focus to offer best food service is compromised by the unreliable supply chain. Thus, Chipotle is in a dilemma on whether to source its foodstuff locally. The company’s management had a problem understanding that once it increases the number of suppliers, it will be difficult to maintain the expected quality. Hence, this affected the food safety measures that the company had put in place to ensure that there is no such case which may compromise its operations. Therefore, the company needs to come up with new food safety strategies to control the problem. For instance, it can decide to source its ingredients locally. This can give the company management an ample time to better manage the operations. At the same time, the supply chain should be closely monitored to ensure all health measures are met at every stage.
As the company looks to recover with investments in diners, safety measures, many safety experts are questioning how the company just saw things get so bad and yet its brand was known to be built on the integrity of ingredients. The many outbreaks associated with the company were as a result of challenges in its models and fast-casual perceptions that have built Chipotle’s identity around locally and fresh sourced ingredients. To prevent recurrence of this problem in the future, the company announced its plans to change the location of preparation of certain ingredients in such way that they are made in a central kitchen. This strategy is key for ensuring that all food safety measures are met and ascertained by health experts before food is sold to the customers. Though many experts argue that the company’s desire to have a localized model for sourcing its ingredients might not function properly. The company management is determined to establish new procedures that will make the entire process a success (Pullman and Wu 54).
On the other hand, Chipotle’s top management is contemplating to partner with well-established medical companies to oversee health challenges on their behalf. This is a brilliant idea since the problem resulted from health expert’s failure to detect the problem in early stages. Therefore, the company should source a health company as it embarks on core business. The company that will be selected should have ability to undertake health measure at different stages of processing before food is sold to customers. This can relief the company the health burden as it struggles with challenges in its supply chain management. Also, the management should incorporate the contracted company in making some key decisions regarding safety dangers caused by ingredients.
For instance, experts argue that the company’s plans to centralize preparations of certain ingredients like tomatoes and then to distribute to various stores imply that the company had no capacity to run procedures in its restaurants. This will further implicate the company’s businesses as the relevant authorities will question the firm’s capacity to continue running food services. Chipotle Mexican Grill’s desire to expand into over 2000 new locations might have contributed to the food safety problem it is now facing. The company was more focused on its expansion and maximization of profits, which made it lose control of health measures at its stores. As a result, this made it difficult for the company to establish where it went wrong. The company’s competitors were able to prevent the situation in good time since they had fewer stores which make it easy to monitor health measure throughout all stages. Therefore, it is important for Chipotle to set up strategic plans that will ensure it meets all health measures despite the fact that it runs several restaurants worldwide.
Reducing Chipotle’s stores does not necessarily mean that it will meet safety measure. The company should maintain the number of restaurants as it strives to solve the problem. For instance, the problem might be a slight mistake with the supply chain which needs to be rectified. More emphasis should be put to solve the deficit in supply management since it is contributory to the spread of the diseases. Chipotle needs to set aside some funds for experts to evaluate the entire supply system so as to ascertain where the problem started. Then, necessary measures should be taken to ensure there is no repeat of the same in the future rather than mere shutting of stores even before it establishes the problem.
In a certain occasion, hundreds of the company’s clients in Simi Valley, California suffered from norovirus. Another incidence, dozens suffered from the same virus when they ate at Boston. Fifty more customers were found to have contracted salmonella in an outbreak that was traced in tomatoes at Chipotle Mexican Grill in Minnesota. The biggest blow for the restaurant was when the management decided to close 43 of its stores voluntarily in Oregon and Washington after customers complained of illness. The federal officials gave a report that the outbreak extended from one coast to another in eleven states. Again, the strain of E. coli was found in Chipotle stores in North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Reports by the Food Safety News indicated that over five hundred people were affected after taking meals from Chipotle Mexican Grill. The most shocking thing is that the foodborne disease outbreaks occurred over a very short period that the company was not able to tell what went wrong (Edmund 10). Some of the foodborne outbreaks that were linked to Chipotle can be tracked to a particular supplier. Though it was the company’s failure to detect the virus as it undertook its procedures in various stores. Had the company put in place sufficient health measures, the outbreaks could not have spread rapidly as witnessed. Therefore, this implies that the company’s top management should come up with long-term strategic plans to curb the foodborne disease outbreaks (Strom 32).
To combat the further spread of norovirus, it was advisable for the company to take measures like no staff member should come to the workplace while sick. And, at the same time, they were expected to wash hands regularly before handling food or serving customers (Fahlgren 813). These basic healthy principles could have stopped the mass spread of the diseases across the United States. Chipotle, should take food safety with greater concern since any mistake would hamper its business. Also, the restaurant should meet the standards set by the health authorities to avoid future problems. Since this is the first time the company has faced a serious issue, the stakeholders should make quick and informed decisions that will see the business open all the closed stores. It should be the reflecting moment where the company needs to employ experts who can manage to identify health issues in real time. Most importantly, Chipotle should show concern for the affected people by catering for their medical expenses. By this, they would make them understand that the company values their health. Furthermore, the top management should strategize well to regain customer loyalty.
From a wider perspective, Chipotle’s management is the cause of all the problems it is facing. The management failed monitor all operations thus creating room for contamination of food. It failed to monitor the hygienic conditions of kitchens as well as staff while handling meals. Such simple safety measures could have stopped the spread of the foodborne disease. Also, the management should be responsible for the supply chains faults while distributing the disputed ingredients. The company should have monitored all processes to avoid such situations.
Over the years, Chipotle Mexican Grill was known for being socially responsible. The company ensured that all meat products were raised responsibly in a humane way and that they were free from antibiotics (Fahlgren 824). Also, the company ensures that it participates in other social responsiveness activities such as cleaning the enviro...