If Chipotle's green choices bring them even moderate success, this could bring about a huge paradigm shift in franchise restaurants nationwide.  As much as we may want chain restaurants to disappear, they're here to stay.  If we can get them to (genuinely) embrace local food resources, we may be able to transition more quickly as a nation to greener restaurant dining.  

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Yes, indeed, Chipolte should be applauded for all efforts to support the local food network.

But,

The pork for all 67 of its mid-Atlantic restaurants is cooked at a kitchen in Manassas, so Chipotle had to refit the Charlottesville branch to accommodate an oven where the Polyface pork could be braised, plus buy pots, pans, and a cooling rack.

eeewwwwww.  It's no wonder I don't eat at these types of restaurants.  It can only be a good thing if all the chains "go local" and, in the course of that, actually prepare food, on-site, at their "restaraunts."

I don't understand Pangolin. If Chipotle corners the supply from one producer, others will appear to take up the slack and get in on the market. That's how free enterprise works. Start up of a pork operation isn't subject to many barriers.

Chains only thrive when they offer improvements in value (and reliability) over locals. In my area we don't have chain restaurants with Mexican food because the locals are good. My guess is that chain restaurants don't have the same type of advantage that "big box" retailers have over locals if local restaurants are well run. They have done well only because so many local restaurants are not run well.

Big deal. A large chain moves to empty the Great Lakes with a teaspoon, and we should applaud? Give me a break. They are still serving MEAT (big greenhouse gas emitter) to people who show up in fossil-fool powered wheelchairs. This is not even on the path to sustainability and should not warrant any serious attention.

Raising pork is about the easiest farming to get into and out of (short of chickens) since the cycle to market is small, the land required is minimal and almost any existing structures can be adopted for hogs. I know people who pop in and out of this as the market swings. Having raised hogs, this is something I actually know about.  :-)

I don't know if it's a publicity stunt or a sincere experiment.  I do question whether any fast food restaurant, an industry with a price structure based on economies of scale, can possibly compete using locally-raised ingredients.  Will fast food customers pay more for their pork burritos in order to get humanely and sustainably-raised local meat?  

Chipotle's market positioning raises some interesting issues. Consider:

We now have at least one national chain restaurant that includes organic and other environmental health claims in its core branding. I find it hard to see the downside in this: the competition is Taco Bell, fer chrissakes!

Including a measure of local sourcing in at least one of their locations is an indicator that at least someone in the organization has ambitions to raise the bar beyond the organic easy button. Again, not something to be sneered at.

The visibility of a large chain brings with it some measure of public accountability and is raising the profile of locavore thinking. It also raises public awareness of how crippled most chain restaurants are in terms of their location-based food prep facilities: think, they had to install an actual KITCHEN in Charlottesville to accommodate this arcane idea.

Meanwhile, the taco trucks may be more authentic and deliver more pork for less money but do the customers (or even the operators) have much idea where the meat and other ingredients come from and how they're produced? Absent this information it's hard to accept at face value Pangolin's claim that his local burrito spots are "obviously superior". CAFO pork from a friendly local mom and pop is still CAFO pork.

What to do? Like Pangolin, I've always been a fan of cheap local food joints but I also value known quality in the food supply chain.  In our area the locally-owned restaurants (such as Chapel Hill's very excellent Lantern) that make a point of serving only or primarily sustainably-grown local farm produce have tended to be upscale and relatively expensive, and I suspect this is generally the case elsewhere. There are encouraging signs though that the locavore attitude is trickling down to more ordinary eating establishments, and that local food communities of farmers, markets and consumers are springing up which will certainly help the small single store or eating spot develop in this way.

Developing these food networks will be indispensable if we are to see locally-owned sustainable food production linked to locally-owned community food outlets, which has to be a better goal than dependence on any chain. We can help. Solid support for our local coops and farmer's markets and CSA's will ultimately help our local restaurants too.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.