Chipotle grilled

When will the conscientious burrito giant pay up for less exploitative tomatoes? 6

Al Gore
Tomato pickers in Florida: To earn $50, fill and carry 125 buckets.
Photo: Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Chipotle Grill has received a lot of good press over its efforts to support local food systems in the areas where it operates.

Even I've gotten into the act. In a post back in March, I reported on a conversation I had had with a Chipotle PR person:

I told her that as long as Chipotle was committed to paying a fair price to farmers -- and not merely using them them for marketing leverage -- I thought the company could play a constructive role in a nationwide transition to a truly sustainable ag. We'll see.

Well, not so fast. From the excellent group blog The Pump Handle, in a post by Celeste Monforton, I learn that Chipotle has refused to sign on to a deal to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes from Florida, where farmworkers toil under brutal conditions for sub-poverty wages.

By pinching that penny per pound, Chipotle fails to meet the standards of such model corporate citizens as McDonald's and Burger King -- both of which have agreed to the higher price.

To get the details on Chipotle's inglorious holdout, read Celeste's linked post above and check out the website of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which has heroically faced down some of the globe's biggest and most retrograde food corporations to get something approaching a living wage for Florida's ruthlessly exploited farmworkers.

If Chipotle is at all serious about its pledge to serve "food with integrity," it will stop dickering around and pay up in Florida.

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. caniscandida Posted 4:08 am
    04 Jul 2008

    Viva la liberta`!Excellent post, Tom, on a very important issue regarding peace, justice and humanity in this republic.
    "Who picked YOUR food?," asks the sign of a demonstrator shown in the Immokalee site.  We might go on to ask, "Who killed your food?," "Who brought your food to you?," "Who prepared your food for you?"  Also: "Who built your house?"  "Who made your furniture?"  "Who is sending you electric power?"  Etc.
    Our decadence can be measured to be increasing, the more our ignorance of such things regarding the basic circumstances of our lives also increases.  Taking those things for granted is not a good sign.

    Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

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  2. Wolverine Posted 5:23 am
    04 Jul 2008

    Prioritizing IssuesI fully support the farm workers to get an extra penny per pound for their tomatoes.  However, if you're implying we should patronize evil pigs like McDonald's or Burger King, you've got to be kidding!  The evils these companies cause go far beyond low pay to farm workers, and include massive environmental harms.

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  3. latenac Posted 10:16 pm
    04 Jul 2008

    critical mistake in summaryMcDonalds owns a majority stake in Chipotle. Chipotle already has a better image than McDonalds so it probably feels it can get away without paying the extra penny while the McDonald's brand needs to look like it's being a good corporate citizen. Corporations could theoretically affect big change but consistency would be the key here.

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  4. caniscandida Posted 4:20 am
    05 Jul 2008

    the gay-rights complicationAnother social-justice issue: A socially conservative, bigoted, rightwing group has called for a boycott of McDonald's, on the grounds that McDonald's is promoting the "homosexual agenda" by participating in the Gay Chamber of Commerce:
    http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/03/mcdonalds-boycott/.
    The boycott surely will not amount to much.  On the other hand, we may wonder whether gay people will now rush to patronize McDonald's, as a sign of grateful support.  I hope not.  Promoting gay rights in this day and age is a fine and noble thing, for which we should indeed thank McDonald's.  But they are at the same time unapologetically involved in a number of other grave injustices, against human beings and animals, so they have hardly done enough to make themselves quite lovable.
    If in fact McDonald's receives an upsurge in custom from the LGBT crowd, it would only go to show how deeply boringly and depressingly "normal," in the worst sense of the word, gay people really are -- which might come as a surprise to many.  Enlightenment is a rare flickering flame indeed.

    Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

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  5. Tom Philpott's avatar

    Tom Philpott Posted 4:58 am
    05 Jul 2008

    McDonald's/ChipotleLateNC,

    McDonald's used to own a stake in Chipotle, but no longer does. The two parted ways in 2006.

    Victual Reality

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  6. PermieWriter's avatar

    PermieWriter Posted 3:30 am
    07 Jul 2008

    The economicsChipotle could make the extra $.01 for tomatoes pencil out by cutting their salt use by two-thirds. I'll be eating my burritos at Cactus until Chipotle figures out that salt is a seasoning, not a major ingredient.
    Hell, if they cut their salt use by 75 percent they could kick in an extra penny for the tomato-pickers, who undoubtedly deserve the compensation.

    Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

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