Chipotle suspends pork from many of its restaurants

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  Andrea Gantz

  Chipotle stopped serving pork at many of its restaurants after a supplier failed to raise pigs according to its standards.

  From WATTAgNet:

  Chipotle Mexican Grill has stopped serving pork at about a third of its restaurants after suspending a supplier that violated the restaurant chain’s animal welfare standards.

  Chris Arnold, a spokesman for the Mexican food chain, said this marks the first time the company stopped serving its carnitas topping that contains pork for its burritos and bowls. He said Chipotle learned of the violation by the supplier through a routine audit, and did not have a timeline for when carnitas would return to the affected stores.

  Arnold said most of the issues related to the violations concerned the housing for the pigs. Chipotle demands that its suppliers raise pigs with access to the outdoors.

  Arnold said the company is looking at a variety of ways to remedy its carnitas shortage, including the use of different cuts of pork or increasing orders from other suppliers. He said he hopes the supplier in question, which the company did not identify, will fix its issues and be able to continue to supply pork to the restaurant chain.

  Chipotle Mexican Grill, which is headquartered in Denver, had 1,724 restaurants as of September 30. The chain has a history of demanding strict animal welfare standards from its suppliers but has also been controversial to the animal agriculture industry after it released its “Farmed and Dangerous” video series in 2014, which took a satirical look at animal production practices.