Case Study Chipotle Mexican Grill

In 1993 Chef Steve Ells founded Chipotle Mexican Grill, his goal was to serve delicious food with the finest ingredients at an affordable price. When Chipotle first opened up their doors their idea was that just because their food was served fast, did not mean that their customers were going to have a “fast food experience”, instead they brought different techniques and interior design to their restaurant where they could provide fine dining to fast food type restaurants. Steve Ells has been committed to serve fresh ingredients that come from local family farmers, by 2005 Chipotle had partnered with over 400 family farmers. Chipotle became a fast growing chain, one of the biggest factors was that it offers products with great quality at affordable …show more content…
Instead of pointing fingers or covering up their mistakes, Chipotle’s reaction to all this was to use these mistakes as a platform for a change for the company. Making the decision of closing down their many restaurant shows their customers, that they are taking drastic measures to stop the outbreaks, and they also decided to use this time to create new food safety measures and inform their employees about it. Not only that, but the company announced that it will be live-tweeting the meeting that they will have with their employees, so the consumers can be well informed about the changes and steps that the company is taking to ensure the health and safety of their consumers. CMG has said to now have been implementing many samples and tests of their many ingredients to prevent any contamination from getting into their restaurants. One of the company’s many efforts to try to bring back their loyal customers was by introducing a short promotion in where consumers were offered a free burrito, by either texting the company or filling out an online form. Chipotle is doing everything they can to turn their fiasco into opportunity. Announcing their $10 million program, that will help their food suppliers also undertake Chipotle’s new food and safety guideline, which …show more content…
CMG also has shown their strong presence, having around 2,000 branch locations, they have also showed a positive brand image with their customer loyalty, and they showed this even when they were going through a rough time, by guaranteeing their customers that they were going to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of their consumers. CMG also decided to show their loyalty to their customers by giving out free burritos for a short period of time, which worked for them because many consumers once again placed their trust in the restaurant chain. And even though giving out free food will most likely cost the company in the short term, the long term effect of this act will help restore the trust in the brand nationwide. They have also shown their innovative ways to publicly advertise their brand, and again this was shown when they decided to have a live tweet of the new changes that were going to take place in their restaurant, by keeping customers up to date and receiving questions from their employees about their new safety guidelines. Other strengths of CMG include use of environment friendly material in their construction of the restaurants, all restaurants are owned by CMG and are not franchised and lastly