Chipotle Chorizo Burrito: What Calories?

Call it bad luck or call it bad karma. Chipotle has been having more than its share. The latest turn of the screw is a class action lawsuit for false advertising.

This wound is a self-inflicted. In-store advertising depicted a new chorizo burrito as having only 300 calories. In fact, just the chorizo is 300 calories. The whole burrito, as described, is more than a thousand. Maybe the post-fact world of politics is spreading to fast food.

Dishonest advertising sorta undermines Chipotle’s “Food with Integrity” positioning. For that matter, so did the E. coli outbreak that hit the chain nationwide about a year ago.

Before that, Chipotle looked like a marketing genius. It bought itself a health halo by promising fresh, local food, free of GMOs. Sales were growing. Its stock was booming. But pretending that calorie bombs are healthy choices was never destined to be a sustainable strategy.

The chain hasn’t recovered from the E. coli outbreak – sales have continuously declined ever since. Maybe this class action will go nowhere. After all, complaining about feeling “excessively full” after eating a burrito simply sounds dumb. It’s just as dumb as suggesting the burrito has only 300 calories.

Chipotle might dodge this lawsuit. But its claim to provide “Food with Integrity” has slipped away.

Click here for more on the lawsuit.

Chipotle, photograph © Mike Mozart / flickr

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November 23, 2016