Chipotle: Carnitas shortage to persist for months

[KamaAina]

http://news.yahoo.com/chipotle-carnitas-shortage-persist-months-220806375.html

Bad news for die-hard carnitas fans: Chipotle said it doesn't expect its pork shortage to fully recover until closer to the end of the year.

The Denver-based company said Tuesday it is working with suppliers to get pork back in its roughly 1,800 restaurants by the fourth quarter, which begins in October. The shortage began in January and affected about a third of its restaurants after the company said it suspended a major supplier over animal welfare violations....

Making matters worse, Chipotle has been rotating its pork supplies around the country every six weeks so that no single region is affected for a prolonged period. But Hartung said that has only caused more confusion and that the company plans to stop the strategy later this month so that regions where carnitas are most popular will have stable supplies....

Even if Chipotle's decision to stop serving pork in some restaurants slows growth, it underscores the company's strategy of defining itself as a purveyor of food made with quality ingredients, and high standards. Mark Crumpacker, Chipotle's chief marketing officer, said during a conference call that customers are showing a greater interest in eating healthier — and that healthier is being defined as food that's natural and free of artificial ingredients.

I predict riots in the streets if this keeps up much longer. Here in California, we have the option of going to an authentic burrito joint instead (except near my office ), but back East, that's generally not an option.

edit: In case you're wondering, the best such joint I've discovered in the past five-and-a-half years is on the ground floor of the building where our sister agency in Berkeley has its Oakland satellite office, and 19th and Franklin downtown.

[Warpy]

1. Well, nothing much there is authentic, but I applaud them for standing up for the piggies.

Since it's mass produced restaurant food anyway, why not offer turkey carnitas? It's what I do at Casa de Warpy, picking up the idea from the local health food store that does it as well.

Chipotle's is doing the right thing. If I ever eat at a chain restaurant again, they'll be the one.

[KamaAina]

2. It wouldn't be carnitas

Carnitas refers specifically to pork, as carne asada does to beef. You live in the Southwest, do you not?

[Warpy]

6. How nice of you to tell me what is available in New Mexico.

Were it not for you, I might not have realized "turkey carnitas" in the food case was an hallucination.

Thank you.

[JI7]

8. Is that just shredded turkey?

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. I'd call it carnitas-flavored turkey...

But I wouldn't call it carnitas.

[jberryhill]

12. Turniquets

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. ...

[yellowcanine]

3. Oh the humanity!

[msongs]

4. the bible says not to eat pork so christans should stop ordering carnitas...leaving pork to others n

[hunter]

5. It says something bad about the U.S.A. that pork is abundant and cheap...

... but that pork raised and slaughtered following some minimal ethical standards is rare.

[Chathamization]

10. The welfare of a handful of orcas at SeaWorld or a single giraffe at a Dutch zoo tends to get more

attention than the welfare of the tens of millions of pigs in the U.S. I guess we have to start somewhere, though.

[hunter]

18. It's a small step.

And maybe any species that we humans could quickly destroy, like orcas and giraffes, really do deserve our greater attention.

Ordinary domestic pigs as a species are in no danger. The non-native feral pigs, especially here in California, are the most dangerous and destructive animals in our forests. Next are deer. Too bad we humans killed off all the wolves and grizzly bears and greatly reduced the population of cougars. They'd keep the deer and pig population in check.

In my walkabouts I've had encounters with many unreasonable animals, mostly pigs and deer and birds and rabbits and loose dogs. But the sorts of animals people fear most, momma bears with babies, cougars, coyotes, bobcats, skunks, badgers, even rattlesnakes, those animals tend to be quite reasonable. It's the exceptions and accidents that get reported.

My wife is entirely vegetarian, and I'm mostly vegetarian.

I've put a lot of thought into this. Humans are omnivores, meat is part of our natural history. I wouldn't impose a vegetarian diet on our three dogs, all adopted from the animal shelter. Dogs are omnivores too, but much closer than me to the carnivore side. Cats are nearly obligate carnivores. Many commercial cat foods, corn meal and chicken fat flavored with fish or meat byproducts, will eventually mess cats up unless the formulator is some kind of wizard.

I always consider where my food comes from and cope with the more difficult choices, sometimes bad or worse according to family finances and expectations, as best I'm able.

[jberryhill]

11. Not sure I follow your logic

It's not as if factory farming methods were developed because the pork producers merely have a perverse desire to mistreat animals.

They do it because it is cheap.

People don't know where their food comes from or where their shit goes. "Where does your shit go?" is one of my favorite questions. Other than people on septic systems, I've found over a random sample of years that most people simply have no idea, and could not point to it on a map.

The illusions people have about the infrastructure required to support their own lifestyles are stunning.

No. Pork cannot be humanely raised on the scale and cost at which pork is consumed. If it were up to me, children would be properly educated about what is required to support things considered "normal", and they could choose between a future in which we will have to do what is necessary to deal with vast seas of liquid shit in Iowa, instead of imagining that their bacon comes from Old MacDonald and his happy oinking pigs.

What it says about this country is that given two five pound packages of ham, people will buy the cheaper one, every time.

[REP]

21. Not me

I'll always choose Niman Ranch pork, even if it didn't taste better (or pork from my neighbor). I'm an Old now, and was taught that my dinner was once a living creature, and those creatures deserve a healthy life and a humane death.

So if there's no meat from humanely farmed sources, I don't have meat.

I realize that this is luxury - having sources for humanely farmed meat and options for meat-free meals and the ability to afford and prepare either. Not everyone has these things but they should.

[jberryhill]

24. "Not everyone has these things but they should"

Design a system that delivers 75 pounds (down from around 130 a few years ago) of beef and pork to each of around 350 million people annually. I haven't run down pork specifically, and that per capita figure exclude poultry.

You can say everyone "should" eat, say, free range poultry. But that's going to take a whole lot of "range" to make that scale to the pounds of meat per square foot that can be gotten out of a poultry farm. Where is that additional real estate going to come from or, more to the point, from what current uses are you going to divert the necessary real estate?

Unless, of course, you mean "should" in some aspirational sense, as in "everyone on earth 'should' have access to clean water". Yes, they should, but they don't, and that's not going to get any better either, given that the world's supply of fresh water is generally insufficient in relation to where the world's people are located.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party in which we live is going to require a whole lot more denial to adjust to what's coming down the pike.

[hunter]

22. When I was a kid two pigs ended up in our family freezer.

Before that our primary source of family meat protein had been fish my dad caught. Then my parents bought a small farm, with two pigs included. The pigs had a fine life, much better than most pigs, and then they were slaughtered very humanely, a year or two past their maximum monetary value, a year or two of feed costs entirely wasted.

But I rarely eat pork since. Call me a hypocrite, I will eat sausage made from a pig that some friend or family member proudly raised or shot, but hunting or raising pigs to eat does not appeal to me.

The majority of my ancestors were dairy people and cattle ranchers. My mom's cousin still owns the family's original homestead. One of my nieces raises goats, dairy and meat, thinking goats are more adaptable than cows to whatever surprises await us in our rapidly shifting modern world.

That makes sense to me. Goats eat most anything, and cheeses made from goat milk are tasty. Goat meat enchiladas are pretty good too.

[JI7]

7. had anyone tried the sofritas ?

[NickB79]

16. I did when they first came out

They had their buy one, get one free offer.

Not bad at all, actually. The pieces of tofu was more minced than I thought it would be, but tasty. If it were cheaper than the chicken burrito, I'd buy it more often, but for the same price I default to the chicken every time.

[Bjorn Against]

20. Yes, it is very good

Tofu is one of those things that can taste absolutely horrible or it can be absolutely delicious, Chipotle's Sofritas are definitely on the delicious end of the spectrum. I have been trying to cut back on meat consumption and it is often difficult because most meat substitutes are not as good as the real thing, but the Sofritas at Chipotle do make an excellent substitute.

[jen63]

14. I guess it's barbacoa

for me, until carnitas is back.........Bummer!

[KamaAina]

25. I'm a barbacoa guy all the way!

[tularetom]

15. If it doesn't have wheels I won't buy a burrito from it

In fact that was our lunch today. Two big fat pork burritos (one carnitas, one al pastor) we got from a taco truck on Hwy 140 in Planada CA, full of pork, rice, beans, sour cream and guacamole. I can heartily recommend this particular vendor he generally parks on 140 about 5 miles east of Hwy 99 on the way to Yosemite.

Él no habla Inglés muy bueno but he makes great food.

[KamaAina]

26. There are no good brick-and-mortar taquerias down there?

!Que lastima!

[Warren DeMontague]

17. DAMN YOU, FIENDISH CLENIS

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

19. What did Hilary know when she placed her order....

....and when did she know it?????

[Throd]

23. Anyone in the Southwest should not eat at Chipotle.