Chipotle's fix wasn't food safety. It was the line.
Brian Niccol took over Chipotle in March 2018 and fixed throughput and digital, not food safety. Digital went from 10.9% of sales in 2019 to 46.2% in 2020 and 50.1% in Q1 2021.
Transcript
March 2018. Chipotle has a new chief executive, Brian Niccol, and a recovery that has stalled. What would you fix first?
Option one: keep pushing the food-safety cleanup story. Option two: fix the line itself, with faster lines, digital pickup lanes and new marketing.
Niccol picked the line. The core problems, in his own account, were slow lines, undertrained staff and weak digital. Not food safety.
At Chipotle, digital was just 10.9% of sales in 2019. In 2020 it hit 46.2%, or $2.8 billion. By early 2021 it crossed half, at 50.1%.
Be fair: COVID-19 drove that jump, onto tools Chipotle had already built. The lesson still holds. Check that you are fixing the problem you actually have.
The records behind this video
Every figure in the video comes from this Decision Record, each with its sources.
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