With all of its pork, 80 percent of its chicken and 50 percent of its beef naturally raised, Chipotle’s healthy focus emphasizes sustainable ingredients rather than fat and calorie content.

Chipotle recently began using hormone-free sour cream and cheese.

As part of its summer pilot program, Chipotle contracted with local farmers to buy at least one of its bulk vegetable items from each farm and distributed them to units closest to that farm.

Flouting suggestions that a huge, fast-casual restaurant chain can't do the fresh, local thing, the seasonal produce program is just the latest development in Chipotle's move to serving a menu entirely composed of socially responsible, sustainable fare.

With most of its meats naturally raised and, just recently, all of its sour cream and cheese hormone-free, Chipotle Mexican Grill has been promoting a new way to think about healthy food in chain restaurants. Rather than spotlight fat and calorie content, Chipotle's “Food With Integrity” emphasizes sustainable ingredients: foods that are better for the human body, the planet and animals by virtue of being produced without pesticides, chemicals, antibiotics or hormones.

“It's not that we consider nutritional content to be unimportant,” says Chipotle Public Relations Director Chris Arnold. “But we take a more holistic look at nutrition and health.”

But are sustainable products more healthful than conventional ingredients? According to Dr. Daniel Fabricant, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Products Association, “There's never going to be a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized trial that shows that milk without hormones is less toxic than milk with it, because that study defies medical ethics. You can't run a study like that on humans.” However, he says, “There have been case reports linking potential adverse affect to humans who have consumed products from livestock given antibiotics and recombinant growth hormones.”

Industry watchdogs such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest say while Chipotle's focus may be better for the earth and animals, it does not help consumers' health. “Their efforts with sustainability are commendable, but if we're talking about health benefits for human beings, there's still enormous room for improvement on their menus,” says Michael F. Jacobson, the center's executive director.

Jacobson says lowering sodium content in bean and meat recipes at Chipotle would help, as would the switch to brown rice and low-fat cheese and sour cream. He also takes issue with the fact that calorie counts are hard to find on Chipotle's Web site. “People should know that a fully loaded burrito from Chipotle has 12 to 14 grams of saturated fat,” Jacobson concludes.

Chipotle counters with the choice card: “There are more than 60,000 ways you can build these entrees,” says Arnold. “Listing calorie contents for each version would be impossible.” Instead, Chipotle lists calories by ingredient type.

Thus far Chipotle's shift to sustainable has been gobbled up by guests who are willing to pay a premium for natural ingredients. According to the Natural Marketing Institute's 2006 Health & Wellness Trends Database, 26 percent of the general population and primary grocery shoppers agree that organic foods and beverages are worth paying an extra 20 percent for.

Likewise, beginning in 2000, with the switch to naturally raised pork, which bumped carnitas menu prices up a dollar, Chipotle's guests have not balked at price increases.

“We actually saw carnitas sales double after the switch to naturally raised pork, despite increasing the price of the product a dollar, which transformed it from being the cheapest to the most expensive item on the menu,” says Arnold. “For us, that was a good indicator that people were willing to pay a little bit more for food that they recognized as being better.”

Subsequent 25- to 50-cent increases in menu prices didn't raise customers' ire either when Chipotle introduced naturally raised chicken in October 2002 and debuted naturally raised beef in August 2003.

But Chipotle says the biggest proof that guests like its menu focus is its consistently growing revenue, both through new-restaurant openings and robust same-store sales. This month Chipotle begins its 10th year of double-digit, same-store-sales.

That's not to say Chipotle's ingredient evolution was a snap to execute. Careful planning has been necessary from the start.

Knowing that it wanted to use gourmet-quality ingredients, Chipotle built its unit-economic model specifically to allow for food-cost flexibility. The company has kept operational expenses low, the menu limited and crews small, for example, to help offset food costs—which at 31.9 percent are high for the industry.

As well, Chipotle's marketing team knew it would need in-store marketing materials and billboards to get guests on board the “Food With Integrity” bandwagon. Posters and billboards launched with each new protein have crystallized the message with simple slogans such as “No 'Pharm' On Our Farms,” “Mystery-free Meat” and “Our Farmers Wear Jeans, Not Lab Coats.”

But the biggest challenges to executing Chipotle's new sourcing model have been limited supply and high market costs. “You can't just throw a switch and make it all happen,” says founder and CEO Steve Ells. “The food industry is very change adverse. Farmers have been doing things the same way for a very long time. They need to know switching to sustainable practices will be viable.…Chipotle doesn't buy enough produce to set the market.”

As a result, supplies of sustainably raised ingredients aren't yet consistently available to Chipotle. What is available is sold at a substantial price premium over commodity goods. “If we served burritos that were made with 100 percent sustainable ingredients today, they'd cost closer to $16 than $6,” says Ells, “which would get us away from our goal of making gourmet, socially responsible food available to mainstream consumers at an affordable price.”

Still, Chipotle has made significant progress toward its ingredient goals. The company now serves more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant company in the world.

Because hogs mature in six months and chickens in just over six weeks, Chipotle was able to switch to naturally raised animals in those categories quickly. All of its pork and 80 percent of its chicken are now naturally raised.

But with cattle, which take two-and-a-half years to mature, the process has been slower. Only 50 percent of the beef Chipotle uses is naturally raised. Exacerbating the issue, “We use very little meat from each head of cattle,” says Arnold.

Beef recipes on Chipotle's menu include steak from the ball tip cut and barbacoa from the shoulder or clod. To use more beef per animal, which will help with the current supply issue, the company is experimenting with different cuts of beef that it might add to recipes without altering taste or texture.

Beyond meat, Chipotle has gradually reduced the amount of commodity black and pinto beans it uses; at year-end 2007, 25 percent were organic. Going to 100 percent organic supply has not yet been possible. “The supply is just not there,” says Arnold.

Chipotle's also looking for a large enough affordable supply of sustainably raised romaine lettuce, cilantro, limes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn and other ingredients used in salsas and fajitas year-round. For the summer produce pilot, Chipotle's purchasing team contracted with local farmers to buy at least one of its bulk vegetable items (onions, peppers, lettuce and herbs) from each farm. The fresh, local veggies were then delivered to distribution centers throughout the country and served at units closest to each farm.

New this month: All sour cream and cheese supplied to Chipotle is now produced from milk taken from cows that have not received any rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormones). Also on the horizon, it plans to use dairy products that are not only hormone free but sourced from cows that are pasture raised.

“We don't see our ingredient improvements as something that will ever be 'done,'” Ells concludes. “Our commitment is to work to constantly improve quality. That's something that will always continue.”