Chipotle Mexican Grill Case Study

821 Words2 Pages

Chipotle Mexican Grill’s first store was opened in 1993 by Steve Ells, a trained chef that borrowed the money from his father. Expanding to over 20,000 restaurants and $4.5 billion in revenue in 2015, it is safe to say that he was a huge success. Over the years, Chipotle prided themselves on the “fresh ingredients” approach to set themselves apart from competitors. This approach may have very well attributed to the growth of the company over the years. In 2014, growth started to slow down. What Happened? Tragedy struck in 2015, E- Coli cases started surfacing in the Pacific Northwest in late October, included August salmonella cases in Minnesota that sickened 64. Outbreaks of norovirus was traced to Chipotles in California in August and Boston in December that together sickened hundreds. On November 20, CDC (Centers for Disease Control) reported the outbreak had spread to Minnesota, California, New York and Ohio. Two weeks later, the CDC reported cases in Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. (Jargon, Julie, & Newman, Jesse, 2016) Who’s at fault? The Centers for Disease Control launched an investigation into the outbreaks seeking to find the cause. As the investigation …show more content…

According to the information that was contained in the article, the situation was not unethical. There was no reason to believe prior to the outbreaks that Chipotle was in any way conducting business in an unethical manner. According to the findings of both investigators and the company, there was no evidence that any of the “diseases” were still in any of the restaurants or that there was any wrongdoing on the part of Chipotle or its suppliers. It remains questionable as to who was affected the most. This outbreak cost Chipotle a substantial amount of revenue, investors and customers. The customers and their families were definitely affected. And lastly, but certainly not any less important the employees of Chipotle were also

More about Chipotle Mexican Grill Case Study

Open Document