Actually, I met my meat when I was about 12.

A simple address of a supplier + google maps will probs give you some answers.

Oh man, now I have to go to Chipotle for lunch. I eat there far too often as it is.

I actually think its legit. While the major cooperate farms ARE as Matt said, disgusting places (meet where your supermarket and burger joint meat comes from) there are still a large number of smaller clean family run operations out there that get a horrible rep thanks to poor reporters and sensationalistic media.

The upside of this is they are also much better maintained and eco friendly. Corporate run pig farms are a ecological disaster thats destroying the south.

The OP may "know for fact chickens don't get moved from the time they are chicks, until the vacuum machine comes to box them for transport to the slaughter house." about farms in his area, but that doesn't mean all farms run that way. I have several friends who raise chickens, turkeys, or hogs, and none of their farms are as he described.
As far as "Last time I got the pigs out on the plains of super green grass (Grass won't last more than a day under pigs)." That picture looks a lot like I remember from my childhood the field looking when dad raised pigs. If you look at the photo, the grass is indeed rutted in places, where the pigs had been rooting. However, grass lasted for quite some time when dad raised hogs, except in the pens where they were constantly trampling, where the feed troughs were, or under trees. However, all the surrounding land was quite grassy.
Does every single thing done by business have to be seen as an affront to consumers everywhere? Is it really necessary to walk into businesses with chips on our shoulders and take offense at the most trivial of things, such as pictures?

Meghann,
Why don't you find out if there are any farms in your area that Chipotle buys from and pay a surprise visit? A little investigative reporting never hurts.

Wouldn't this backfire? After I see the happy little piggy, I don't really want to eat pork.

@missbrooke06: shits good eating.

Actually as a off topic response to this, in high school one of my bio labs dealt with dissecting a dead pig fetus. My teacher, ever the senstive one, went out of her way to make it a "special event"

We watched Babe, while she went around with a mechanical pig on the desk.

I loved that class. Shes actually a principle now in the district.

Disclosure: I am a vegetarian.

I think this is legit. Chipotle actually has made at least some effort to source pork from Niman Ranch and chicken that is at least antibiotic-free. That said, there's a problem of scale here. The more meat Chipotle (or any other place) requires, the more difficult it will be for the suppliers to keep giving their animals a reasonable amount of space.

Also, I can't blame Matt for being annoyed to find pro-slaughter propaganda in the bag with his veggie burrito.

Meghann,

Since only 50% of the beef is natural, if you are the one in two customer that gets the beef from the cow that was raised in a torture prison in a 4th world country, do they give you a picture that reflects that?

I adore Chipotle -- it's excellent food that's always fresh. The slight premium paid is well worth it.

This whole American Gothic-ish "family farm" idea is always amusing to me. It's a rare situation in which ma and pa and the ten kids tend the field, milk/feed the cows, etc., out of the little farmhouse next to the red barn. Sure, they still exist, but understand that many family farms STILL are family farms, yet are still GIANT automated and industrialized farms, run like the "corporate farms" that so many people like to hate. Trust me - I live close to both types of farms.

Oh yeah - Barbacoa beef burrito, please. Black. Hot salsa.

I like how they say 100%, 2/3rds, and then finally 50% -- so the other half of the beef comes from the horribly inhumane places.

@missbrooke06: Ha, don't you see? That's the plan. It's too late once you see the pictures; you've already purchased your meat-filled burrito. Now, if all goes according to plan, you'll be so disgusted that you'll throw it away and go buy a vegetarian burrito. They just doubled a sale. It's genius.

I'm glad they're trying to be animal-friendly, but this really is k

I bet some tree huggers will complain that they are killing the environment by printing these pictures to include with the bag.

THe OP needs to chill a little. How does he know for a fact that pig farms don't have green grass? Actually, if you look at the grass, you can tell it's been rutted. If the pigs have enough space, they won't wear down the grass and vegetation as quickly.
Also, if you have free range chickens, they spend most of their time outdoors and, if the coop is kept clean, it's usually very nice (as pictured).

@not_seth_bundle: "pro-slaughter propaganda"?

Please, can we leave the vegetarian holier-than-thou attitude out of this conversation?

kind of reminiscent of the old "Saturday Night Live" commercial for Cluckin' Chicken restaurants, whose mascot was the bird you were about to eat ("Mmm! I'm delicious!").

I love angry vegan hippies. All that pissing and moaning couched in the "live and let live" crap...

It sounds to me like Matt got totally brainwashed by the PETA machine. Saying, "So where is all the bird shit and carcasses that succumbed to walking on the ammonia soaked floor?" just reeks of propagandized information.

As a side note, why so angry Matt?

@ancientsociety: No, we can't. If you order a veggie burrito, there's a good chance you're a vegetarian, and finding a brochure in the bag that tries to make you switch to meat instead is a pretty aggressive move.

Sorry Chipotle, but "vegetarian fed" is not the same as "naturally raised" with regard to beef. Most commericial beef these days is fed corn for part of if not the entire life of the cow. This is not a natural thing for cows to eat, and it results in lower quality but cheaper meat. The only "natural" way to raise beef is by feeding it grass its whole life. Sources of grassfed beef are difficult to find but they do exist.

Bacon tastes goooooood. Pork chops taste gooooooood.

The pig is a maaaaaaaagical animal.

And the REALLY bizarre thing is that Chipotle is owned by McDonald's.

the "food with integrity" slogan is interesting in that it only makes direct claims about ingredient sourcing, but has pretty vague positive connotations. i don't know if a 1,200 calorie burrito has integrity or not.

@not.. I don't think there's a problem of scale. The more demand for humane meat the more farms will be converted to this higher profit margin good. It's in companies best interests to do then do sourcing audits and protect their brand.

That's it, next time I see a Chipotle, I'm trying it. This is awesome, assuming they're not horrible horrible liars.

If this is really true, I want to go work for Chipotle.

And not as a burrito jockey.

@Myrall: McDonald's divested their interest before Chipotle went public years ago.

@camas22: I hope you're right. The problem is that raising livestock more humanely requires a lot more physical space, among other things. For a farm with large-scale production, that would require either expanding its land or scaling back production.

Cf. Horizon Organic, the "organic" factory farm.

People
Eating
Tasty
Animals

I'm all for it.

Most people are not vegetarians. Most people are starting to care a little bit more about where their meat is coming from. Chipotle is answering the question before they ask it.

@not_seth_bundle: Trying to MAKE you switch to eating meat by including pictures of sourced farms!?

LOL. Wow, are you militant vegans that weak-willed that a simple picture could make you change your eating habits? That's quite sad.

Chipotle is FORCING anyone to eat meat. What they're doing is getting their customers (most who probably would never do so) to think about where their food comes from. Isn't that what you militant vegans want - that Americans are aware of how their food is processed?

I guess not if it's not officially sponsored PETA propaganda. You people hurt the slow food and organic movements just as much as the multinational factory farms.

@not_seth_brundle: Pictures of animals at farms is not trying to convert you to eating meat. Pictures of fresh cooked meat filled burritos would be trying to get you to buy/eat meat. The pictures of the farms are actually a nice middle ground showing that while they do produce delicious meat products, at least the animals are not subjected to a "hard life".

@Veggie-Complainers

After being a vegetarian for four years you start to realize how much of a "Eat meat or you're a freak" attitude is out there. Yeah vegetarian's have their obnoxious PETA people-eaters. But I swear if one more person waves a hamburger in my face and says "Don't you miiiiiiisssss meeeeeat" I will deck them.

@ancientsociety: I'm not any kind of vegan, much less a militant one. In fact, if you'll reread my whole original comment, this time without all the prejudgment and anger, I think you'll find it fairly balanced. It boils down to: Yes, Chipotle is an improvement over a lot of places despite the fact that it serves up a lot of meat (a position a "militant vegan" would never take), and Yes, at the same time I can understand why a vegetarian would be annoyed to be given a flyer promoting meat products.

@not_seth_brundle: I just don't get how pictures of the live animals are supposed to get a vegetarian to eat meat. It doesn't make sense.

Isn't it more likely that the pictures end up in all the bags, not just the ones with the veggie in them? I think they just don't bother leaving the pictures out of those bags because a) it's easier and b) not eveyone buying a veggie burrito is a vegetarian.

@not_seth_brundle: Okay, I could understand you taking the middle ground...right up until you mentioned the "pro-slaughter propaganda" and then went on to say that Chipotle is somehow forcing the OP to eat meat.

Both of those statements are, frankly, a little silly and don't jibe with your supposed "middle-ground" approach.

I eat meat and I got a veggie quesadilla when I went out for dinner the other night. Chances are these are thrown in with every bag, and the guy tossing your food in the bag is just doing what he's supposed to.

I swear, people look for any reason to get offended. When someone hands me a flyer on the street for a church event, I don't shriek at them that I'm not Christian so how dare they give me a flyer - I just toss it and go on my merry way.

@bkaid: I'm wondering about your "fourth world" comment. Are you saying that cheap beef is imported? Where is it cheaper to raise beef than in the US-of-subsidized-corn?

Interesting pictures. I'm glad they're moving away from anti-biotic, hormone filled meat.

That being said, a Chipotle burrito has nothing on a monster from Freebird's.

God help us all if it turns out they're owned by DS-MAX.

@not_seth_brundle:

at the same time I can understand why a vegetarian would be annoyed to be given a flyer promoting meat products.

You're absolutely right - in order to give "equal time" they ought to also hand out flowers showing the happy little ears of corn and the gaily cavorting pinto beans in the fields. And the chipotle peppers being slowly and painfully smoked.

Kidding aside...the squeaky wheels gets the grease. There's a lot more complaining/concern about poor livestock farming than poor vegetable farming. The intent of the campaign is not to cast aspersions on vegetarians; it's to try and convince omnivores that the meat is being raised in good conditions.

Anyone who interprets a statement of "We treat our animals nicely" as "You should be eating meat" has got some soul-searching to do.

Anyone who takes these pictures at face value and believes that they can walk onto this farm unannounced and find sterile, pleasant conditions also has some soul-searching to do. These chicken coops may be cleaner than your average chicken coops, but it's also expected that they are only showing the pictures that portray the operations in the best light possible. So, of course they got the nicest looking chicken, cleaned her up good, set up a clean staging area in the coop, used a shallow depth of field so that you really can't see the background, etc.

Won't someone please think of the tomatos? They are living creatures too!

If only Chipotle was around here.. so for now I subsist on Moe's Southwest Grill.

I eat meat all the time, but my boyfriend is vegetarian and a few of my friends are vegan. I think they should get another photo of happy beans or lettuce or something and put that in the bag of when a vegetarian/vegan orders at chipotle.

I have no problem looking at a photo of the pig I'm eating (i LOVE carnitas, but barbacoa is good too) at Chipotle, but I can see how a vegan wouldn't want to see the happy piggy destined for death and consumption.

I love Chipotle so very very much. I tried to resist the whole "chain" aspect of it since in Chicago there are so many mom & pop burrito places, but when I'm downtown I head straigth for Chipotle.

ps - You can get extra chopped cilantro if you ask for it - secret menu item!

@homerjay:
LOL, wouldnt that be awesome? Think of all the funny emails from Richard Shapiro that we would get to read...

I adore chipotle (I'm veggie), but I've always found it a bit of a gas that they're so smug about their animal husbandry, given that they're owned by Mcdonald's, who won't be showing off THEIR farms anytime soon.

re vegans being offended: if you choose to life your life a (not very common) certain way, do not be startled when you encounter something offensive to your sensibilities while eating at a restaurant that serves meat. For that matter, if you are a vegan, why are you eating at chipotle? Don't you want to eat food that was prepared on a surface that hasn't touched meat multiple times, with only some clorox in between?

You can see them preparing meat, meat is all over the menu, other people are ordering meat, you can see them ordering meat, and you get mad seeing a picture of a pig in your food bag?

re pictures of cute furry animals: Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, MI is a very expensive restaurant that serves Zingerman's-quality boutique foods. The whole place is full of posters telling you that your 16 dollar plate of macaroni and cheese is made of cheese from the left nipple of a cow named Gertrude, and that Ol' Gertie is from a farm in a little valley in some sunny part of California where cows smile and rainbows erupt from the ground, or something.

unfortunately, a 16 dollar plate of macaroni and cheese is a 16 dollar plate of macaroni and cheese, no matter how organically and small-farm you slice it.

note: I am somewhat sarcastic.

@SadFootSign: I hear you. There's always the defensive comments about "preachy vegetarians" if you happen to just mention it, followed by the inevitable ass who thinks he's the first ever to make the "tasty animals" or "made of meat" cracks, and most of the time, somebody has to wave their portion under your nose, as if the temptation will be so great you'll snatch a bite anyhow.

(take this with as much sarcasm as needed)

"It's a sad state of affairs when someone sees images of animals that are raised right and automatically assumes they are misleading,"

well chris, that's exactly why we don't believe you. from your website:

"When you order naturally raised beef at Chipotle, here is what you are getting (and not getting):
· No added growth hormones, ever.
· No antibiotics, ever.
· Vegetarian feed with no animal by-products."

...but then you state:

"In all, Chipotle serves more naturally raised meat than any restaurant in the world, including 100% of our pork, about two-thirds of our chicken and nearly half of our beef."

so you guarantee that none of the cattle that came from other than organic farms, do not have a single hormone, antibiotic, nor animal by-product? the bottom line is, "it's a sad state of affairs", because everyone lies and spins their pr crap. if you're gonna be honest then post disclaimers on the photos like "you got about a 50/50 shot at eating the nice looking cow in the picture"... on that note, i'm a gambling man, so i i'll try your food today and hopefully get a fully organic cow for lunch.

Chipotle's effort is sincere. I've met Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farm. At a recent lecture, he talked about flying out to meet with the CEO of Chipotle about finding ways to source truly ethical meat. It's a tough order - finding meat consistently in every market where Chipotle has a store. It's obvious that they're phasing this in as they line up resources. But I don't doubt the sincerity of their effort, and I applaud it. This is coming from a highly cynical person who doesn't trust the motivation of any business. But I trust Joel Salatin, and if he felt they were sincere (and he was part of the effort), I believe him.