Chipotle Mexican Grill Business Analysis

In the fall of 2015, Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants had an unfortunate series of e coli outbreaks throughout several of their franchise locations in the Pacific Northwest. There were 35 reported cases of the virus in Washington State and Oregon. The illness customers suffered from was linked to the popular chain of eating places.

The Chipotle organization was immediately faced with a public relations challenge. The organizations identified the crisis and 1st came up with a goal. Crisis Management (Lecture 1-2) Address the e coli outbreak in a way that is as aggressive as the media coverage that had reported on the events. The purpose of the plan, to take ownership of the incidents, be responsible for fixing it and regain as much consumer trust as possible. The final goal to bring their sales revenue back up.

Prior to the bad food e coli outbreaks, Chipotle had a high rank of 25, according to a CNN Money report , very high on YouGov’s quality food ranking not

First they must clean the stores. Using “Activities and tactics” *** They responded by shutting down their restaurants to address the cleanliness and food safety standard issues. In January 2016, just after the food crisis, the company sent out a press release that all restaurants will close and hold an all team meeting to address the controversy. **** This included Chipotles that were not affected or had no reported cases of the virus. It implemented new food safety standards. They promoted all these new tactics across all social media platforms and send press releases to media outlets promoting their actions. All to achieve their goal of regaining consumer trust and increase revenue once again. All restaurants placed a sign on the entrance to each location alerting foot traffic customers of the safety measures taking place with a reassuring “BRB” and a description of the recent