Chipotle Catering a New Crowd

Where is your customer having lunch today?  Is there birthday party at work? Are the In-Laws coming over for your teenager’s birthday party? Are you friends helping you build the fence that fell apart during the last snow storm? Success does leave clues and one clue is all restaurants are operating in an Omni-channel retail environment branded restaurants must as well or risk losing customers.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is one of the most successful branded restaurants in the United States. In a move to extend the brand Chipotle has announced that it is rolling out a catering program nationally.  No longer will Chipotle be excluded from homes, offices, or backyard work parties.  The catering program is a platform for expanding into new consumer occasions reaching out to new consumer touch points extending the brand.

 Chipotle’s catering program offers four different meal options and can serve between six and 200 people. Two of the four options, the Two Meat Spread and the Big Spread, allow consumers to create their own taco, burrito, or bowl, just as they would in the restaurant.

The Two Meat spread feeds 20–200 people, and customers choose two proteins from Chipotle's lineup of chicken, steak, carnitas, or barbacoa. The spread also comes with white and brown cilantro-lime rice, black and pinto beans, four salsas, sour cream, guacamole, cheese, lettuce, crispy taco shells, and soft flour tortillas. The Big Spread offers an additional protein choice and comes with fajita vegetables.

One of Chipotle's options features an assortment of premade burritos. The prepared Burritos by the Box option allows customers to pick a protein and white or brown rice for the filling, but has three fixed additions: black beans, fresh tomato salsa, and cheese. This option serves six or more people, and for every two burritos, Chipotle includes a bag of chips, tomatillo-green chili salsa, guacamole, and sour cream. Unlike the other options, it does not need to be ordered in advance.

Success does leave clues and Chipotle consumer focused catering options extend the halo of the brand from the brick and mortar to the home a much more inviting space. 

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging integration strategy.  

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