Here’s Why Chipotle Keeps Running Out Of Carnitas

Remember back in January when Chipotle stopped serving carnitas (pork) because the supplies failed to meet the restaurant's standards?

Well, they are back on board with serving carnitas, but they say that they don't know if they will ever be serving as much of it as they have in the past. The reason? So many food suppliers don't meet the high standards that Chipotle has when it comes to food quality. As much as it stinks for pork lovers that they don't have enough supply to meet the demand for carnitas, it's a GOOD thing that their standards are so high! It means that they are striving to serve you, their customer, the best quality food available, and unfortunately you can't say that about every restaurant out there.

In order for the food suppliers to meet Chipotle's guidelines, their meat ingredients must be free of added hormones and antibiotics. For pork, the pigs need to have access to the outdoors with straw to sleep on. However, the shortage also comes with other fast food places jumping on the high quality meat wagon as well. Looks like Chipotle has started a nice little trend, one that I'm totally on board with!

Chipotle has hopes of expanding (yes, please!) but with the shortage of high quality meat, it's making that move difficult. Chipotle is currently trying to find a better solution to getting high quality meat, including carnitas, into it's stores, so they are able to expand. The hope is to open about 200 more stores this year, bringing the total of Chipotle restaurants to around 2,000. Fingers crossed!