No Place for Chipotle Mexican Grill in Lenawee County

I’ve eaten in Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. A new Chipotle is coming to Adrian. The food is great, service is good, prices are reasonable, what more could you ask for? Well how ‘bout some consideration for the community you serve.

Chipotle uses their Food with Integrity campaign to commercialize what they say is their attempt to source more wholesome locally grown food. They define that as food sourced within 350 miles of their store. They caution customers about the dangers of Industrial Agriculture with sensational video productions like Farmed and Dangerous which uses fear tactics like feeding petroleum to cows that eventually explode and the Chipotle Scarecrow, depicting a meek and lowly Scarecrow navigating the Commercial Food Production world seeking more wholesome food.

The Adrian store will bring needed jobs. Jobs where, according to glassdoor.com, Team members make on average about $8.50 an hour. While co-CEO’s Steve Ells and Montgomery Moran pull down a cumulative $49.5 million annually.

I pulled out Frontier Communications Yellow Pages and counted no less than 11 restaurants with Mexican cuisine in the Adrian area, all but two are family owned businesses. How do you suppose they feel about the competition?

Lenawee County’s number one industry is Agriculture. Adrian is roughly 25% Hispanic.

If Chipotle wanted to wage a genuine food with integrity campaign they would stop their attack on American Agriculture, be sensitive to the communities they enter and focus their resources on a true farm-to-store effort.

#chipoltle