Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Over break, I went to a self proclaimed 'Gourmet Burritos and Tacos and Barbacoa' fast-casual dining establishment called Chipotle Mexican Grill. It's basically a high end Taco Bell. As a chain, it's recently gained popularity, and it was even viewed as influential enough to be satirically made fun of in a recent South Park episode (a 2 minute Chipotle segment from the episode can be found here). I noticed that on the menu listing the type of meats that can be used to make a taco, burrito or what have you, each description of meat started with the words "naturally raised". Before taking DSOC 1200, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought, but after talking about the different ways animals can be raised (conventional, organic, etc.) it made me wonder what type of life being 'naturally raised' entails for a cow. 'Naturally raised' means raised in the natural environment they evolved to live in. This means the cows would have to reside in a large open field or meadow area full of grass for grazing, with absolutely no trace of number 2 corn or antibiotics anywhere. This vision is compatible with Chipotle's concept of trying to provide "food with integrity". However, even if they won't admit it, 'better quality food' has become an extremely popular and effective marketing claim. And taking into consideration the current growing size of the chain, I'm personally hesitant to believe all of their claims to the full extent. What do you think?
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Great observation, and very interesting question! If you really want to know the answer, you could trace the path of Chipotle's "naturally raised" chicken for our next writing assignment, where students choose a food item and follow it through production, processing, distribution, marketing, and consumption. I'll talk more about the assignment tomorrow in class, but I think this would be a fascinating paper!
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