Chipotle Cuts Carnitas from Menu amid Pork Shortage

Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants are currently facing a shortage of what the company calls “Responsibly Raised” pork and as a result, about 1/3 of its locations are not serving carnitas, including West Hartford.

The Chipotle on New Britain Avenue alerted its customers with a sign on the door that read “SORRY, NO CARNITAS” in big letters, according to NBC Connecticut.

An employee told NBC that the West Hartford location likely won’t get carnitas again until the end of May and the company is working to get it back on the menu as soon as possible.

Chipotle said on its website that the company’s Responsibly Raised pork “comes from pigs that are raised with outdoor access or in deeply bedded pens, free of breeding, gestation, and farrowing crates, and without the use of antibiotics. Conventionally raised pigs generally do not have access to the outdoors, spend their lives in densely crowded buildings, live on hard slatted floors with no bedding and no ability to root, and are given antibiotics to keep them from getting sick.”

Chipotle also said that as part of its ongoing audit of suppliers, they found “a pork supplier that was not meeting all of our standards. While the supplier in question was meeting most of our standards, some of their practices related to the size and condition of the housing offered to some of the pigs were not in line with our protocols. As soon as we identified these issues, we suspended our purchases from this supplier. Without this supplier, we do not have enough Responsibly Raised pork for all of our restaurants, and we will not be able to serve carnitas in some restaurants.”

In an effort to end the shortage, Chipotle said it is “exploring many options to add to our pork supply, including adding new suppliers, finding additional cuts of pork to use, and growing the quantities we source from existing suppliers. These options for replacing the supply we have lost will take some time, but it is important to us to maintain our high standards for pork and we will continue to experience some shortages while we work to increase the available supply.”

Contact your local Chipotle to see if they’re serving carnitas. Read more at Chipotle’s website here.

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