Chipotle CEO Steve Ells addressed attendees of the National Restaurant Association's 89th annual Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in an educational session Monday. He was there to discuss and offer an owner's perspective on serving food in an ethical and sustainable manner.
Ells expressed his disappointment with what he describes as the American food paradox. "What most Americans eat today isn't real food," he said. "Eating has become just an act of putting calories into our body. Most of us don't even know where we're going to get our next meal." The paradox, according to Ells, is that Americans practice such eating habits while at the same time representing the most health-obsessed culture in the world.
His solution is to serve what he and others at Chipotle call "food with integrity." Through this initiative, the chain is gradually moving toward serving only organic foods. While they are not 100% organic just yet, Chipotle is widely regarded as a trailblazer in the sustainable foods movement.
So what went wrong with food in America in the first place? Ells claims scientists "led us astray" when they began engineering out of our food what they thought was unhealthy and putting in its place preservatives, antibiotics and other ingredients they thought were good for us. "They've contributed more to a problem than they have to a solution," he claimed.
The real solution, he says, is "to eat real food – unprocessed, whole food that has been cooked in a classic way and sourced from real farmers," as opposed to large corporate farms.
However, many foodservice operators who haven't yet struck gold with a brand like Chipotle have a hard time reconciling the goal of implementing sustainable initiatives with the reality of limited financial resources, especially in a struggling economy. To those operators, Ells advises, "Just cook good food. If you cook good food, the people will come."
