Won’t someone think of all those orphaned tortilla chips? Sure, there’s always salsa, but if Chipotle has a guacamole shortage, there’s going to be a lot of sad little chips. And people. Don’t start researching rooftop avocado farms just yet, though — Chipotle’s just preparing for the worst in light of “global climate change.”

In an annual report released last month and now making the rounds after Mother Jones highlighted it yesterday, Chipotle says it might have to temporarily take guacamole off the menu if extreme weather events “associated with global climate change” lead to an uptick in price ingredients.

“Increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients,” Chipotle explained in the filing.

“In the event of cost increases with respect to one or more of our raw ingredients we may choose to temporarily suspend serving menu items, such as guacamole or one or more of our salsas, rather than paying the increased cost for the ingredients.”

Chipotle uses about 97,000 pounds of avocados a day –with 70 in each batch of guacamole — which makes any prices increase it’d pay for 18,000 tons of avocados per year quite a hefty sum.

But again — there’s no need to go lock yourself in a closet and rock back and forth ceaselessly, as some on Twitter and Facebook are currently threatening to do (or somewhere close to that) The world hasn’t ended (yet) and guacamole will probably smother your food for the near future.

“This is nothing more than routine risk factor disclosure. The sky is not falling,” a Chipotle spokesman told CNNMoney. “I wouldn’t read too much into this.”

And besides, he adds, this has happened before, and it likely will again.

“We saw similar issues in 2011 and incurred higher prices for the avocados we used, but never stopped serving guacamole,” he said.

You can follow MBQ on Twitter for any and all views on the guacamolepocalypse: @marybethquirk

Chipotle Warns It Might Stop Serving Guacamole If Climate Change Gets Worse [Think Progress]
Chipotle: Guacamole at risk from global warming [CNNMoney]

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