Not only is Chipotle using antibiotic-free meat; their success is inducing others to adopt the same standards.
Which means more farmers are avoiding antibiotics and raising pigs outside, where they grow a nice fat back which makes them taste better.
Which is tastier.
And somewhat more pleasant for the pigs.
And, of course, as these sorts of things tend to be, a little more expensive.
We started selling twice as many carnitas as we had been before [despite a jump in price from $4.50 to $5.50 for a carnitas burrito],” Chipotle’s Chris Arnold told me. He acknowledged that it’s hard to know whether people truly detected a big difference, or if the in-store marketing about the switch to all-natural, antibiotic-free pigs caught people’s attention. Either way, it set Chipotle on a new course.
The NPR story traces the origins of the Chipotle antibiotic crusade to an article written by a guy named Edward Behr in 1999 in a foodie journal called The Art of Eating.
This is the one huge piece of good I’ve done through writing about food,” [Behr] said with a laugh. “The one, huge, thing!”
Let’s watch that nice Willie Nelson Does Coldplay video again, why don’t we?
