This is Why Chipotle Has Raised its Prices

If you’re wondering why your meal at Chipotle may be more expensive than you last remembered, there’s a good reason for it. Well, at least the company thinks its a good reason.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has hiked menu prices by roughly 4% in order to cover the cost of raising its workers’ wages.

It was last month that the Mexican burrito chain had said that it would increase the hourly wages for its workers and that it would reach an average of $15 by the end of this month.

Company executives had said at the Baird Global Consumer, Technology & Services Conference that they would be passing along the price of raising pay to consumers.

“It feels like the right thing, at the right time, and it feels like the industry is now going to have to either do something similar or play some kind of catch-up,” CFO Jack Hartung explained at the virtual conference. “Otherwise you’ll just lose the staffing
gain.”

“Ingredient costs, there’s talk about it. We’ll see where that leads,” Hartung said.
CEO Brian Niccol said the company prefers not to raise its prices but that the move made sense given the situation.

The labor work force for the restaurant industry has been slow to return despite the space opening up more after more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last month the leisure and hospitality industries added 292,000 jobs, but employment in those fields is still down by 2.5 million compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to the Department of Labor.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.