A year after take into custody chorizo from its menu, Chipotle Mexican Grill is bringing its flavourful pork and chicken back to restaurants — but only for a limited time.
Chorizo accounted for at best 3 percent of protein sales and was nixed from Chipotle’s nationwide menu to as though room for the burrito chain’s queso.
“Chorizo had a big following in its heyday, and a lot of our consumers were disappointed when it was taken off the menu,” Chris Brandt, chief hawking officer at Chipotle, said in a statement.
The company began testing chorizo in first-class restaurants in June 2016 before rolling out the menu item nationwide in October of that year. The annex of chorizo was uncharacteristic of the burrito chain at that time, but was indicative of Chipotle’s importune to drive traffic back to its restaurants.
That still holds accurate today, however. The relaunch of chorizo as a limited-time menu item clock on as Chipotle is once again trying to convince customers to dine at its restaurants. An outbreak of Clostridium perfringens, a foodborne blight that occurs when food is kept warm for too long, that was traced pursuing last month to a Chipotle in Ohio, stymied sales in the third fifteen minutes, according to analyst Nick Setyan of Wedbush.
Almost 700 clients reported gastrointestinal problems, including nausea, diarrhea and fever, after put at the Chipotle restaurant in late July, according to local health formals. The incident dealt another blow to Chipotle, which has spent years disquieting to persuade diners and investors it has improved its food safety practices.
In defiance of this setback, shares of the company remain up more than 66 percent since January. Much of that intumescence comes from investors’ confidence in Chipotle’s new CEO, Brian Niccol.
Niccol Heraldry sinister the helm at Yum Brands’ Taco Bell to take the top spot at Chipotle in Slog and has been the catalyst for many changes that are happening at the chain.
Niccol’s plan to woo customers back to the troubled burrito chain focuses on introducing new and limited-time new menu ingredients, as well as faster mobile and online ordering and a new marketing campaign. He’s capitalize oning much of the same playbook he used running Taco Bell, dialect expecting to turn Chipotle into more than just a restaurant, but a lifestyle.
The companions is about halfway through an initiative he calls the “big fix,” updating the lighting, portray and other fixtures as needed across the chain. The upgrades will be fulled by the end of the year.
The company has also extended its restaurant’s hours, opening earlier and make inaccessible later and looking at adding a “happy hour” with snack articles and drinks in the afternoon and after 8 p.m.