Chipotle restaurants, a popular chain of fresh Mexican fast-food joints, are everywhere in Metro Detroit, from Rochester Hills to Sterling Heights to West Bloomfield to Royal Oak.
So it’s hard to ignore reports, including one in the Washington Post, that the company this week said it had stopped serving pork at a third of its restaurants, or some 600 establishments countrywide, because one of its suppliers was violating company policy and not treating pigs nice enough. Very admirable.
"This is fundamentally an animal welfare decision and it's rooted in our unwillingness to compromise our standards where animal welfare is concerned," company spokesman Chris Arnold told the Washington Post.
If only the company had been so responsive to my concerns back in 2010 as it is to the pigs that are slaughtered for its outlets.
I say that because back in 2010, while I lived in Washington, I stopped with a friend on Saturday for lunch at Chipotle in the Woodley Park neighborhood. My friend ordered a vegetarian burrito and chose the pinto beans. It was then that the person behind the counter said that they contained pork. I was like, "you’re kidding me."
I had often eaten the pinto beans, thinking they were vegetarian. I’m Jewish. And while I don’t keep kosher, I don’t eat pork. My friend doesn’t eat pork either. Neither did a good friend a former colleague at the Washington Post, who happens to be Muslim. She was shocked when I told her the pinto beans she’d been eating contained pork.
I wrote to the company, asking that they note on the menu on the wall that the pinto beans contain pork so other customers wouldn't be fooled.
Here’s an email exchange:
I am Jewish and don't eat pork. So I can't tell you how bothered I was to learn that your pinto beans are cooked with pork. The woman behind the counter informed me and a friend, who also does not eat pork , about this. I had assumed they were vegetarian and I have eaten them on many occasions. I would like to know why there is no label indicating this is a pork product, not a vegetarian product as I'm sure many like me have assumed. Allan Lengel
Several days later came the response from a man named Joel Bond, a marketing consultant for the company.
Allan,
Thank you for writing to us. I'm sorry we surprised you with the fact that our pinto beans are seasoned with bacon. Although we don't mention that fact on our menus, we do always refer to our black beans as being vegetarian. Additionally, on our website, where each of our items is described with more detail, we do state that the pinto beans are cooked with bacon.
I'm not sure what you typically order with us, but if you order a vegetarian dish, our servers are trained to serve black beans in them. If a guest requests pinto beans in a vegetarian meal, our servers should tell our guests about the bacon in our pintos.
Again, I'm sorry we surprised you and subsequently let you down, but we hope you'll remain a regular guest of ours.
Sincerely,
Joel
My reply:
Joel: Thanks for responding. But I have to say I hardly find it comforting that the ingredients are buried inside the recesses of your website. I have to ask: How often do you study the ingredients on a restaurant website before eating there? I am not a vegetarian. But I am Jewish and I don't eat pork. That shouldn't be hard for you to understand. Perhaps you've missed the point. I also know Muslims who do not eat pork. I have to ask what you are going to do to let people know at your restaurants that pork is in the pinto beans? I have had those pinto beans many times, not realizing that they contain pork. I'm very bothered by that.
You can conveniently tell people that the ingredients are listed on your website, or you can do the right thing by putting on the menu for all to see that the beans are made with bacon. I assume many people will find that appealing since bacon is quite a popular food. If that's a problem, I can pass on the word on my twitter and facebook accounts and in other venues. Please let me know. Thank you, Allan Lengel
Joel: Just as an added note, I had lunch today (6-28-10) with a former co-worker of mine who is Muslim and has been a regular customer of yours. And she was shocked to hear that the pinto beans, which she has had on a regular basis, are made with bacon. She too does not eat pork. The point being, unless you expect people to declare their religion and dietary restrictions when they place their order, it would probably be a good idea to put that on your menu in the stores for all to see. Allan Lengel
He shot back:
Allan,
I can definitely understand your frustration on this and we’ll take your suggestion into consideration. However, I hope you might be able to understand that there are multiple dietary considerations to take into account for various reasons. Some are health or allergy related, some are religion-based and some are just personal preference. If we posted signs for every ingredient in every item we serve, our menu boards would become very difficult to read. Because of this, we just try to be forthcoming when our guests ask for information.
Again though, I’m sorry this came as a surprise to you or your friend and we’ll definitely give some more thought to making that information easier to assess.
Sincerely,
Joel
In 2012, when I returned to Detroit I wanted to write a story about this. It still bugged me that the company was so insensitive.
So I drove out to a Chipotle on Orchard Lake in West Bloomfield where there are Jewish and Muslim customers. I was going to snap a photo of the menu and write about this whole ordeal.
And then, there it was: A little notation on the menu noting that the pinto beans contained pork.
I just scratched my head and wondered why they had been so resistant to making a notation in the first place.
Footnote: A reader pointed out an article that the company in 2013 eliminated the bacon from the pinto beans. Before that, it appears in 2011 ( I contacted them in 2010) someone who was bothered by the company's failure to label the beans as containing bacon, tweeted about it and generated public attention. That's when the company decided to put a footnote about the pork in the beans on its menu.
It seems only when the company was publicly embarrassed did it react.
