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Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

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Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#41

Post by labster »

jeffdubin wrote: post #28
joezydeco wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's did indeed help Chipotle get their logistical systems in order. CMG and MCD still share some common suppliers. One area where Chipotle resisted McD's advice was in automating their kitchen systems. One example was the steak. CMG believed hand-marinating and grilling their steaks in-store was a core feature that couldn't be changed. It's also a highly risky procedure when it comes to food safety and cross-c…

2019 = Order via speech recognition 2020 = Automated kitchen systems prepare ingredients 2021 = Burrito preparation via robotics 2021 = End-to-end order fulfillment without human involvement Just a matter of time before raw ingredients are lab grown and harvested by robots. Not too long ago, this was pure fantasy. Only now is it starting to look inevitable, for better or for worse.

I guess what I don't understand is why we don't have more human-free systems for food payment. All of 15 years ago, I went in a company cafeteria in Tsukuba, paid a vending machine, and took the ticket to the cook. If I had been able to speak any Japanese back then, I probably could have customized my order there. But here in the US we're still hiring fast food workers to take standardized orders.

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#42

Post by throwaway7645 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #34
jeffdubin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 = Order via speech recognition 2020 = Automated kitchen systems prepare ingredients 2021 = Burrito preparation via robotics 2021 = End-to-end order fulfillment without human involvement Just a matter of time before raw ingredients are lab grown and harvested by robots. Not too long ago, this was pure fantasy. Only now is it starting to look inevitable, for better or for worse.

There is a small chance that we will see something like Star Trek food replicators in our lifetime.

Do you mean matter replication (no we won't as this violates the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle similar to the transporter), or something akin to a very complex vending machine that can make things from Ramen to Fajitas?

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#43

Post by labster »

AmVess wrote: post #21
degenerate wrote: post #6

Step 1: Reduce food quality to cut costs Step 2: Come out with stupid names of rehashed food ideas Step 3: Spend all new profits from low-quality food ideas on HEAVY MARKETING of newer, lower-quality food ideas Step 4: If (Chipotle != Taco Bell) Go to 2 Step 5: Exit

Revisit this post in a year, and I'd not be surprised to see that it was correct. Turn Chipotle into an upscale version of Taco Bell and market the pants off of crappy food and sit back and watch profits grow. Chipotle can't really compete with restaurants that actually serve good food, so why not fill the giant divide between them and Taco Bell?

That divide is already occupied by authentic Mexican restaurants. At least in California, there's no air available. The only thing Chipotle has to leverage is scale enough to push into markets, but the competition is already there.

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#44

Post by mc32 »

labster wrote: post #41
jeffdubin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 = Order via speech recognition 2020 = Automated kitchen systems prepare ingredients 2021 = Burrito preparation via robotics 2021 = End-to-end order fulfillment without human involvement Just a matter of time before raw ingredients are lab grown and harvested by robots. Not too long ago, this was pure fantasy. Only now is it starting to look inevitable, for better or for worse.

I guess what I don't understand is why we don't have more human-free systems for food payment. All of 15 years ago, I went in a company cafeteria in Tsukuba, paid a vending machine, and took the ticket to the cook. If I had been able to speak any Japanese back then, I probably could have customized my order there. But here in the US we're still hiring fast food workers to take standardized orders.

Because Japan's demographics made it imperative and conversely our importation of cheap labor subsidized or delayed the need to introduce automation to offset costs.

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#46

Post by feniv »

labster wrote: post #41
jeffdubin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 = Order via speech recognition 2020 = Automated kitchen systems prepare ingredients 2021 = Burrito preparation via robotics 2021 = End-to-end order fulfillment without human involvement Just a matter of time before raw ingredients are lab grown and harvested by robots. Not too long ago, this was pure fantasy. Only now is it starting to look inevitable, for better or for worse.

I guess what I don't understand is why we don't have more human-free systems for food payment. All of 15 years ago, I went in a company cafeteria in Tsukuba, paid a vending machine, and took the ticket to the cook. If I had been able to speak any Japanese back then, I probably could have customized my order there. But here in the US we're still hiring fast food workers to take standardized orders.

Coin-operated vending machines for food was actually somewhat popular in the US in the early 1900ds before fast-food. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#47

Post by frakr »

degenerate wrote: post #6

Step 1: Reduce food quality to cut costs Step 2: Come out with stupid names of rehashed food ideas Step 3: Spend all new profits from low-quality food ideas on HEAVY MARKETING of newer, lower-quality food ideas Step 4: If (Chipotle != Taco Bell) Go to 2 Step 5: Exit

Don't forget the cross promotion with popular video game franchises and soda brands.

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#48

Post by Clubber »

jrs95 wrote: post #24
benatkin wrote: post #19

Like with Starbucks, it was the individual employees, their kindness, and their appreciation for the product that made Chipotle special for me during their non-mediocre years. I liked Starbucks the most in about 2006 and Chipotle the most at around 2010. It's too bad they're mediocre now. They still both feel magical occasionally, though. I'm not sure whether they compromised the product or the culture first.

The culture may have largely declined by their pay not rising as the pay in fast food did. At least in my area, McDonald’s and Wendy’s pay as much if not more than Chipotle for an entry level position. Edit: I get that this was probably more about the corporate culture as a whole, but working conditions and pay at the store level is equally as important in terms of customer experience in my opinion. 5 years ago when…

Absolutely. Whenever we go to fast food and it inevitably sucks, I always quip, "they aren't paid enough to give a shit, and I don't blame them."

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#49

Post by smsm42 »

I wonder if that would have any influence on the kind and quality of food. Chipotle seems to have decent fast food - nothing to write home about, but qualifies in my book as an ok if not great meal to eat and get on with the day. OTOH, I ate at Taco Bell exactly once in my life and it was the absolutely worst meal I had anywhere in the US. I wouldn't want Chipotle go there. But maybe borrowing CEO doesn't mean moving the food in the same direction. Hopefully.

Re: Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head

#50

Post by geofft »

tyingq wrote: post #45
jey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one: https://twitter.com/byjayroot/status/809485903051812864

This is the warning I was talking about.

I'm not sure what you mean with rolling the dice - it sounds to me like they're saying, the suppliers may have given antibiotics to the pigs as specific medical care, but are not just blanket giving every pig antibiotics. (The link says that permitting antibiotics for medical care is the one difference between Chipotle UK and US standards, in fact.)

Do you expect either lower-quality meat or higher-health-risk meat as a result of this? I don't think I do but maybe I just don't know enough here.

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