During the fourth quarter of 2015, Chipotle’s sales were significantly declined due to an E.coli outbreak, including 14.6% decline in comparable restaurant sales. As a result of the food safety incidents, subsequent negative publicity adversely impacted on Chipotle’s restaurant sales and profitability. In response to these incidents on their sales, Chipotle’s objective is to increase comparable restaurant sales by 5% in three years. It also aims to win back the customers and reverse negative sales trends through product development.
Table 2 shows that the addition of new items to the menu is an opportunity for Chipotle to attract more customers. With the weakness of limited menu options combined with the opportunity, Chipotle can increase sales by introducing new product categories. While Chipotle Mexican Grill is focusing on Mexican-based fast food, Chipotle opened a new restaurant in 2011 called ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, serving Asian-inspired cuisine. With this newly brand concept under Chipotle, this related diversification strategy could be the key to the company’s growth in the future. Due to the food safety incidents, Chipotle is running the risk of losing loyal customers under the threats of E.coli outbreak. Chipotle plans to bring back Chorizo to the menu, a blend of spicy pork sausage and chicken, to draw back its most loyal customers. Moreover, the company has developed a catering program tapping into new consumer occasions. This newly catering option not
As demonstrated in Exhibit 1 on page 143, the company’s total revenue increased from $1.085.782 million dollars to $3.214.591 million dollars in less than seven years. Beginning at the end of 2007 through the end of 2013, Chipotle’s Mexican Grill total revenues increased at a CAGR of 19.83%. The new provided catering program, the six elements of their strategy adapted to other cuisines (ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen) and the growing number of new restaurants are decisive aspects in increasing revenue yearly.
The company had run a national TV commercial which named “Back to the Start” during the Grammy Awards. Chipotle also had published their food, restaurant concept and business through favorable articles and television programs. Moreover, Chipotle used video and music programs as well as event strategy to attract the consumers’ attention to their restaurants. The company also initiated promotional activities via newly opened restaurants to attract more consumers. Chipotle introduced a reward program, the “Farm Team” to encourage more customers to join a program that educated them something related to Chipotle Mexican Grill business concept. In addition, the word-of-mouth publicity from customers enable Chipotle to reduce the cost of advertising but at the same time increasing the brand reputation of the restaurants in the
Chipotle Mexican Grill is a fast casual Mexican Restaurant that operates from the United States. Although the restaurant is specifically segmented to the fast casual Mexican restaurant market, it does not simply operate in this realm. Chipotle is also successful operating in the restaurant market as well. According to the Trefis Team (2014) Chipotle Mexican Grill has managed to take market share from restaurants in the fast food industry.
The actions taken by Chipotle after the E.coli outbreak can be seen as both exacerbating the problem and finding ways to resolve the problem. However, as the crisis began, leadership coming from CEO Steve Ells and Co-CEO Monty Moran painted a picture of denial. One of the first decisions made in reaction the crisis was to purchase full-paid advertisements. This marketing tactic was done to mask the severity of the e-coli outbreak, sooth investors, and retain loyal customers. In addition to television advertisements, Chipotle decided to advertise using direct mail (Wahba, 2016). This practice does not correlate with traditional chipotle advertising; their last paid advertisement was in 2012. Chipotle has always operated in a fashion that let
The Fast food industry is extremely competitive. Although Chipotle is a step up from most fast food restaurants, it still must
Chipotle’s kitchen and restaurant design intentionally places employees up front to reinforce a focus on service, through interaction with customers and individual attention by creating one burrito at a time (Chipotle, 2011, p. 5). While Chipotle combines basic ingredients to magnify the flavor they also stick to the basics when staffing their restaurants. Chipotle only has two shifts and cross trains their
re strong competitors and Yum! Foods leads the industry it is my recommendation that any investments be made in Chipotle.
Chipotle first opened in Denver in 1993 with a simple idea behind it, “food served fast didn’t have to be “fast-food” experience”, (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2015). Prior to CEO Steve Ellis opening the restaurant chain, he himself was a chef. Since its creation, Chipotle has become a phenomenon in the restaurant industry and has experienced tremendous growth since it went public in 2006 with over 1,600 restaurants in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and France, with the majority located in the United States (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2015).
Due to economic downturn the strength of the buyers’ power has increased as the industry looks to gain consumers with pricing strategies much like those of McDonald’s “Value Menu” and combination meals even though the cost of commodities have gone up (James, 2010). Customers of QSRs are looking for quality food without high costs. While Chipotle does not have a value menu or offer any type of combination meal much of their success is due to the fact that the customers are willing to pay a higher cost for higher-quality (Chipotle, 2010).
Chipotle is the leader in the fast casual market, with over 1,900 locations, $3.21 billion in annual revenue, and the ability to serve up to 300 customers an hour. It has innovated the restaurant market by providing reasonably priced scratch-made meals, containing local ingredients, all within the confines of a pleasing aesthetic environment (Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., 2014; Kaplan, 2011). To reach its success, the firm utilized architectural innovation by stealing components of various types of restaurants already in existence. The company appropriated its rapid meal preparation methods from fast food chains such Subway and Quiznos, adopted its provision of quality food from more upscale casual Mexican restaurants, and implemented a locally based supply chain similar to that seen at many local farm-to-table establishments. This convergence of different properties came together right as the millennial generation was coming of age and demand higher quality, natural, and locally sourced ingredients in meals that could receive quickly. The company has also attempted to utilize an incremental innovation approach by removing all CMO ingredients and testing new foods such as breakfast items, soup, and chorizo sausage (The Associated Press, 2015; Peterson,
The purpose of this new product expansion is to increase sales primarily. Increasing sales is very important for Chipotle and these new products can help raise revenues significantly. The project deliverables include the introduction of the project, and the implementation of the project both in the United States and then other
It is also more widely spread geographically. Subway also offers the “choose your own” style of service, but it does not serve organic foods ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis."). Hot Head Burrito is another Mexican style restaurant that would be considered a competitor. These restaurants offer cheaper menu prices, lower-carb options and “diet menus” ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis."). While Chipotle offers none of these things, they have quite a large target market and have grown tremendously just in the last five years ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis.").
Chipotle is a fast casual dining establishment that serves Mexican cuisine, specializing in burritos and tacos. Like other fast casual restaurants, it does not offer full table service, but promises a higher quality of food with fewer frozen or processed ingredients than fast food restaurants. In fact, Chipotle is widely known for its mission to only use organic ingredients and
Economic conditions can have a major influence on any company across the globe in today’s world. Panera Bread can be affected by economic conditions in different types of its segments. Panera has many signature soups, pastas, and other food products that are released during the year for certain periods of time for the season. These products can be very rewarding to the company by the seasonal times such as Christmas, when people have a little extra money to spend they go to Panera for their special soup craving. Before the economic downturn of 2008-2009, Panera made three marketing initiatives to try to raise awareness and bring home the idea of “food you crave, food you can trust.” The economic environment of the downturn in 2009 made these 3 marketing initiatives partially successful due to the bad economic environment. The environment was really had on Panera considering they area a commodity for people. The
I believe one segment of the Chipotle customer population is the self-expression people. These people are the kind of customers that want to express their values of supporting the local farmers and the farmer’s mission of growing organic food and their way of supporting that movement is by patronizing this kind of restaurant.