Ells Pledges Renewed Focus on Enhanced Guest Experience,
Innovation and an Expanded Commitment to Making Better Food
Accessible to More People
Investor Call Scheduled for 5:00 PM Eastern Time Today
Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) announced that its Board of
Directors has named company Founder Steve Ells the company’s sole
Chief Executive Officer. Ells will also remain Chairman of
Chipotle’s board. Monty Moran has stepped down from the co-CEO role
and from his board seat effective immediately, and will retire from
Chipotle in 2017.
“Steve founded Chipotle more than 23 years ago with a powerful
vision to use great ingredients prepared skillfully by hand, but
served very fast,” said Neil Flanzraich, Lead Director of
Chipotle’s board. “This approach has proven to be a very successful
formula, but as the company grew, operations became more
complicated and less consistent. Given the ongoing challenges
facing the company, the board felt strongly that it was best for
Steve to resume leadership of the company going forward. This will
ensure that his high standards for the guest experience and his
unyielding commitment to the company’s mission are top
priorities.”
Ells, a classically trained chef, started Chipotle in 1993 with
a small loan from his father. Chipotle has since grown into one of
the nation’s largest restaurant companies, with more than 2,200
locations in five countries. Ells served as Chairman and CEO from
1993 until 2009 when he became co-CEO, a title he shared with
Moran. The company went public in 2006. As Chairman and CEO, Ells
will directly oversee restaurant operations, strategic initiatives,
and innovation projects at the company.
“Chipotle is based on a very simple idea: We start with great
ingredients, prepare them using classic cooking techniques, and
serve them in a way that allows people to get exactly what they
want,” said Ells. “Even though it’s a simple idea, operations have
become over-complicated. I’m very much looking forward to
relentlessly focusing on ensuring an excellent guest experience,
removing unnecessary complexity from our operations, championing
innovation, and pursuing our mission of making better food
accessible to more people.”
Ells also indicated that he will pursue employee incentives that
are more closely tied to the guest experience. Chipotle now pays
its starting employees above the federal minimum wage and provides
benefits including paid vacation time, paid sick leave, and tuition
reimbursement to all employees. The company also provides stock to
its General Managers upon achieving Restaurateur status. The
Restaurateur program, which recognizes the company’s elite
restaurant managers and provides a pipeline for its future leaders,
is a cornerstone of Chipotle’s field operations. In recent years,
however, achieving Restaurateur status has become increasingly
complex and Ells is committed to re-envisioning the program by
placing an emphasis on the guest experience and making the path to
Restaurateur more intuitive and accessible to more General
Managers.
“It’s incredibly important to me that we create an excellent
dining experience in all of our restaurants. That starts with
having great restaurant teams. To that end, I will evolve our
Restaurateur program to ensure that even more of our best employees
succeed and thrive at the company,” Ells said. “While our plans
will take some time to implement, we will act with a sense of
urgency toward all of the changes we are pursuing.”
Ells also recommitted to the company’s quest to serve better
ingredients, announcing a reimagined company mission. The new
company mission to “Ensure that better food, prepared from whole,
unprocessed ingredients is accessible to everyone” is the next step
in the evolution of Chipotle’s mission-driven business. Chipotle’s
previous mission was to “Change the way people think about and eat
fast food.”
Ell’s commitment to expanding the company’s mission can be seen
at http://www.chipotle.com/mission.
“When I started Chipotle, I knew very little about the way food
was raised,” Ells said. “But over the years, I’ve become a champion
for ingredients that are raised with respect for people, animals,
and the environment. I will also continue to advocate for food made
simply, without processed ingredients, which is the kind of food I
believe should be available to everyone. I’m incredibly proud of
the team at Chipotle and I’m thankful to them for helping us
realize our mission of bringing better food to more and more
people.”
“I’d also like to thank Monty for his extraordinary
contributions to Chipotle over the years. Monty inspired us with
his vision for an enlightened people culture, and I wish him the
best as he retires from the company,” Ells said.
Chipotle will hold a call for investors at 5:00 PM Eastern time
today during which management will discuss these changes. Please
note that the company will not be providing an update to Q3
financials during this call. The conference call can be accessed
live by dialing 800-239-9838 or for international callers by
dialing 1-913-661-9178. The call will be webcast live from the
company's website at chipotle.com under the investor relations
section. An archived webcast will be available approximately one
hour after the end of the call.
ABOUT CHIPOTLE
Steve Ells, Founder, Chairman and CEO, started Chipotle with the
idea that food served fast did not have to be a typical fast food
experience. Today, Chipotle continues to offer a focused menu of
burritos, tacos, burrito bowls, and salads made from fresh,
high-quality raw ingredients, prepared using classic cooking
methods and served in an interactive style allowing people to get
exactly what they want. Chipotle seeks out extraordinary
ingredients that are not only fresh, but that are raised
responsibly, with respect for the animals, land, and people who
produce them. Chipotle prepares its food using whole, unprocessed
ingredients and without the use of added colors, flavors or other
additives typically found in fast food. Chipotle opened with a
single restaurant in Denver in 1993 and now operates more than
2,200 restaurants. For more information, visit Chipotle.com.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
Certain statements in this press release, including statements
about company leadership and the quality of the guest experience in
Chipotle restaurants, are forward-looking statements as defined in
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We use words
such as “anticipate”, “believe”, “could”, “should”, “estimate”,
“expect”, “intend”, “may”, “predict”, “project”, “target”, and
similar terms and phrases, including references to assumptions, to
identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements
in this press release are based on information available to us as
of the date any such statements are made and we assume no
obligation to update these forward-looking statements. These
statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially from those described in the
statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not
limited to, the following: the uncertainty of our ability to
achieve expected levels of comparable restaurant sales due to
factors such as changes in consumers’ acceptance of and enthusiasm
for our brand, including as a result of food-borne illness
incidents, the impact of competition, including from sources
outside the restaurant industry, decreased overall consumer
spending, or our possible inability to increase menu prices or
realize the benefits of menu price increases; the risk of
food-borne illnesses and other health concerns about our food or
dining out generally; factors that could affect our ability to
achieve and manage our planned expansion, such as the availability
of a sufficient number of suitable new restaurant sites and the
availability of qualified employees; the performance of new
restaurants and their impact on existing restaurant sales;
increases in the cost of food ingredients and other key supplies or
higher food costs due to new supply chain protocols; the potential
for increased labor costs or difficulty retaining qualified
employees, including as a result of market pressures, enhanced food
safety procedures in our restaurants, or new regulatory
requirements; risks relating to our expansion into new markets; the
impact of federal, state or local government regulations relating
to our employees, our restaurant design, or the sale of food or
alcoholic beverages; risks associated with our Food With Integrity
strategy, including supply shortages and potential liabilities from
advertising claims and other marketing activities related to Food
With Integrity; security risks associated with the acceptance of
electronic payment cards or electronic storage and processing of
confidential customer or employee information; risks relating to
litigation, including possible governmental actions related to
food-borne illness incidents, as well as class action litigation
regarding employment laws, advertising claims or other matters;
risks relating to our insurance coverage and self-insurance; risks
arising from senior management changes, including our return to
having a single CEO, as well as our dependence on key personnel;
risks related to our marketing and advertising strategies,
including risks related to our Chiptopia rewards program and other
promotional activities; risks regarding our ability to protect our
brand and reputation; risks associated with our ability to
effectively manage our growth; and other risk factors described
from time to time in our SEC reports, including our most recent
annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form
10-Q, all of which are available on the investor relations page of
our website at ir.Chipotle.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161212005600/en/
Chipotle Mexican GrillChris Arnold,
303-222-5912carnold@chipotle.com
Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG)
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