I contacted Chipotle Restaurants on Feb. 19 about providing nutrition information for their menu. David Chrisman, a representative from Chipotle contacted me on March 06, 2007 about my request. Here is their reply, directly from their email response:
We had it on the Web site until just recently. We are currently dealing with a New York City regulation that governs how we disclose nutritional information. We are seeking additional guidance from the regulators as to the form that such disclosure must take and unfortunately we need more guidance from them before we can return the nutritional information to the website.
Sincerely,
David Chrisman
Mo’Joe
Chipotle
While I believe the Chipotle representative, their response raises a couple of questions. First, should all restaurants follow Chipotle’s lead and pull their information until New York determines what should be done? Secondly, if other restaurants are publishing their information, is there another reason for Chipotle’s lack of disclosure?
6 Comments
I have ate at this location a couple of times and i am very health concious. I need to know the nutrional facts and what it is I am really eating. I would appreicate if the nutrional information would be posted on the website and I am sure other paying customers would appreciate it as well.
That’s odd - I emailed the company last year for nutrition information (since it was not on their website) and got an email back the next day with a PDF listing all of the info. No problem at all.
@Chris:
I think the New York law in question went into effect recently. So it’s possible that Chipotle responded to your request prior to the law taking effect. Still makes me wonder if all restaurants in New York have the same policy of not disclosing information because of this law.
This is a form message (I received an identical one myself). The New York law in question states, roughly, that any restaurant which makes its nutritional information available must do so in New York, in or near the menu.
Obviously, Chipotle could simply act in good faith and provide fulll and conspicuous disclosure in its New York restaurants to ensure compliance with the law. However, Chipotle has chosen to exploit the perverse “loophole” created by the law, which is that restaurants who don’t publish any information aren’t subject to the law!
I won’t give Chipotle another penny until the nutritional information has been posted back to the web site. -S
I used their web form asking for information sometime around May 6th. I got a response today, May 18th. You asked on February 19th, so it’s the information has been down for at least three months. They should have been able to sort this out within three months.
Frutilla makes the same claim. I used to buy smoothies at Smoothie King when at airports, because they had the nutrition data on their website (they still do) and the smoothies were really good. This past week, at Dallas Forth Worth International, I saw that Frutilla had replaced Smoothie King. I went to the Frutilla website to get nutrition data, and it says that they pulled it because of the NY regulation. They said that if they provide it, then they also have to provide it in the restaurants, and their sign boards are too small to include nutrition data for all the items they sell (true) and of course, in an airport eatery, they have no walls to post information. So IF their interpretation is true, we all lose out - we have LESS info than we would otherwise have.