6 Major Changes Underway at Chipotle
Chipotle, founded in 1993, has been in business for more than three decades and has long held the coveted title of one of the country's top restaurant chains. But despite its massive success in the industry, Chipotle is constantly evolving to keep things fresh and exciting and make its business even stronger.
This year is shaping up to be a momentous period of change for the fast-casual Mexican chain—and many of the developments will have direct implications for customers. Think exciting new menu items, new store openings, price changes, and leadership shakeups, among others. With a few months left before 2025 commences customers shouldn't be too surprised if even more changes roll out at Chipotle before the end of the year.
Here are the six major changes underway at Chipotle in 2024.
Exciting new menu options
While Chipotle doesn't launch menu items quite as rapidly as many of its fast-food rivals, it has been rolling out a series of exciting new protein offerings over the past few years. One of the newer innovations is the fan-favorite Chicken Al Pastor, which returned to menus in March 2024 following its limited-time debut a year earlier. On Aug. 27, Chipotle announced that it was testing yet another chicken option at 80 Chipotle restaurants in Nashville, Tenn., and Sacramento, Calif.: the Chipotle Honey Chicken.
Though the sweet and spicy new offering isn't available at all Chipotle locations, fast-food chains use these kinds of tests to determine if a new menu item is popular enough to offer nationwide. So, depending on how Chipotle Honey Chicken performs in Nashville and Sacramento, customers may see a broader launch in the future. Looking ahead, Chipotle plans to continue developing new ingredients for customers craving more variety in their burritos and bowls.
"Chipotle aims to deliver two to three menu innovations per year, leveraging its stage-gate process to listen, test, and learn from guest and employee feedback and iterate before deciding on a national launch strategy," the chain noted in a press release.
A lineup of new beverages
In addition to introducing exciting new innovations in food, Chipotle has also rolled out a major revamp to its drink selection this year. Available as of July, the new beverage options include two soda flavors from the low-sugar, low-calorie brand Poppi: Strawberry Lemon and Orange.
Chipotle also added Coke Zero to its soft drink lineup and began selling the Open Water brand's environmentally-friendly aluminum water bottles in lieu of plastic bottles.
"The perfect drink pairing can truly enhance the flavor of your go-to Chipotle meal," Stephanie Perdue, vice president of brand marketing at Chipotle, said in a statement. "We've refreshed our ready-to-drink beverage assortment to complement our existing lineup and appeal to our guests' love of unique flavors and sustainable, healthy mindsets."
On top of the new arrivals, Chipotle's beverage offerings include organic lemonades, fountain sodas, bottled sodas, and iced, fruit-flavored drinks called Agua Frescas.
A change in leadership
Perhaps one of the most significant changes underway at Chipotle in 2024 is the departure of CEO Brian Niccol, who is leaving to take the helm at another fast-food giant, Starbucks. The company announced the change on Aug. 13, saying Niccol would leave on Aug. 31 and COO Scott Boatwright would fill in as interim CEO. Though Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung previously announced plans to retire in 2025, he now intends to stay with the company indefinitely as president of strategy, finance, and supply chain to "ensure a smooth transition," according to a press release.
This leadership switch-up could foreshadow even more change at Chipotle in the future. For example, it was under Niccol's tenure that Chipotle began focusing more on technology and digital orders. What innovations will the new CEO usher in?
"I'm incredibly proud of the work that has been accomplished since I joined Chipotle in 2018," Niccol said in a statement. "The strategic priorities this team has put in place have positioned Chipotle to win today and enable future growth. It's hard to leave such a great company and all of the talented people I've had the pleasure to work with, but I depart knowing the business is in great shape and poised for growth with a strong, experienced leadership team."
New & improved portion sizes
Its famously massive portions were one of the qualities that made Chipotle so beloved during its meteoric rise to becoming one of the country's largest restaurant chains. However, the once-sizable portions have become inconsistent at best and meager at worst.
"I just feel like it doesn't hit like it used to," TikToker @jeanineamapola said in a viral July 2023 video about the chain.
Though Chipotle has maintained that it never shrunk its portion sizes amid all the backlash, Niccol said during a July earnings call that the criticism spurred the company to "relook at our execution across our entire system with the intention to always serve our guests delicious, fresh, custom burritos and bowls with generous portions."
Chipotle is retraining workers at locations with "outlier portion scores" to serve consistent, correctly made food, as well as reemphasizing the importance of providing generous portions across all of its locations, Niccol said. The company has already started to see improvements in customer scores, which means these efforts might be paying off.
Higher prices
Chipotle has implemented a handful of price increases over the past few years, attributing the hikes to inflation, higher employee wages, more staffing, and elevated costs for meat and produce, among other factors. The trend continued this past April when Chipotle—alongside many other fast-food companies—raised its prices yet again in response to a fast-food minimum wage hike in California.
In an April earnings call, Hartung revealed that its wages increased by nearly 20% in the Golden State after the pay increase. This led the company to raise prices between 6% and 7% in California, which added "almost a full point to total company pricing" beginning in the second quarter.
In a subsequent July earnings call, Hartung said that the company didn't plan additional price increases in 2024, but its final decision will depend on how the rest of the year unfolds.
"It'd be great to not have to take any [pricing] for the rest of this year," he said.
Rapid Expansion
Scores of restaurant chains have been opening new locations and scoring exciting development deals in 2024, but few are expanding quite as fast as Chipotle. The chain expects to open a whopping 285 to 315 new locations in 2024, an even larger total than the 271 stores it debuted in 2023. More than 80% of the planned new stores will feature Chipotlanes—Chipotle's dedicated drive-thru lanes for digital pick-up orders.
Chipotle already opened 47 and 52 new locations in the first and second quarters of 2024, respectively. With many more slated to debut before the end of the year, customers should keep their eyes peeled for potential Chipotle openings in their corners of the country in the coming months.
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