--- title: Chipotle Pulls Pulled Pork from 600 of Its Restaurants description: After an audit showed a supplier was not complying with the chain's standards concerning animal welfare, the fast-casual burrito specialist has stopped selling carnitas at one-third of its locations. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-01-14T16:52:27.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T05:05:14.000Z' section: Business tags: - burritos - carnitas - Chicken - Chipotle - fast casual - Fast Food - Food & Drink - pork word_count: 234 canonical: https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant at Madison Square Park in New York.](https://img.money.com/2015/01/150114_em_chipotle1.jpg?crop=0px%2C105px%2C4000px%2C2250px&quality=85) One reason Chipotle has been at the forefront of the [red-hot fast-casual restaurant](https://time.com/5425/the-only-kind-of-restaurant-flourishing-in-todays-economy/) movement is the company's stances on sustainability and animal welfare. In the case of pork—used in its braised carnitas, one of the key ingredients in burritos, bowls, and salads—[Chipotle insists](http://www.chipotle.com/en-us/fwi/animals/animals.aspx) on doing business only with "farmers whose pigs are raised outside or in deeply bedded pens, are never given antibiotics and are fed a vegetarian diet." Yet as [*Reuters*](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/us-chipotle-mexican-pork-idUSKBN0KN07220150114), the [*Associated Press*](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27314231/chipotle-carnitas-shortage-no-pork-at-third-restaurants), and others have reported, a routine audit recently revealed that one of Chipotle's large suppliers wasn't fully complying with the restaurant's guidelines concerning the treatment of pigs. Accordingly, Chipotle's supply of pork has diminished, and it has decided to stop selling carnitas at one-third of its restaurants (around 600 locations) until the shortage can be remedied in a way that doesn't force Chipotle to sacrifice its standards. "We could fill that shortfall with conventionally raised pork, but the animal welfare standards fall well short of our requirements, and (we) simply aren't willing to make that compromise," Chipotle communications director Chris Arnold explained, according to *Reuters*. It's unclear when carnitas will return as a menu option at affected Chipotle locations. So for the time being, many meat-loving Chipotle customers will have to limit themselves to chicken or barbacoa beef. They can suffer in solidarity with McDonald's customers in Japan and [Venezuela](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-venezuela-mcdonalds-idUSKBN0KF24720150106), who recently had to endure a [French fry shortage](https://money.com/japan-mcdonalds-french-fries/). ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Inventory Management", "item": "https://money.com/inventory-management/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Chipotle Pulls Pulled Pork from 600 of Its Restaurants" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/", "name": "Chipotle Pulls Pulled Pork from 600 of Its Restaurants", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-01-14T16:52:27.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/chipotle-pork-carnitas-shortage/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:05:14.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Chipotle Pulls Pulled Pork from 600 of Its Restaurants", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/01/150114_em_chipotle1.jpg?crop=0px%2C105px%2C4000px%2C2250px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "150114_EM_Chipotle" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-01-14T16:52:27.000Z", "description": "After an audit showed a supplier was not complying with the chain's standards concerning animal welfare, the fast-casual burrito specialist has stopped selling carnitas at one-third of its locations. 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