It turns out you may have spent all this time getting annoyed at Chipotle’s skimpy portions for nothing.
According to the company’s CEO, the solution was sitting right under your nose the whole time. Want more chicken in your bowl? More rice in your burrito? More of literally anything? Just ask for it. Doh! All this time, we’ve been going around thinking the price you paid already entitled you to a decent portion. How silly of us.
Shrinkflation Strikes Again
“You should ask for a little more,” Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright told Brian Sozzi in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance. “It has always been our brand ethos, and it is still to this day. We serve big, beautiful bowls and burritos. Full stop, no questions asked. If you want more, just ask the team member. I promise you there’s never a team member on that line that’s going to say no.”
Boatwright’s somewhat tone-deaf advice comes after the fast-casual chain spent years facing scrutiny over accusations that it was deliberately skimping on portions and serving burritos and bowls that were half the size they used to be.
Founded in Denver in 1993, Chipotle Mexican Grill built a huge part of its reputation on the idea that its ingredients were fresh and its portions were massive — the kind of burritos that could last two meals — especially throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. But things gradually started going downhill, portion-size-wise, as various fast-food giants began shrinking once-generous servings while charging the same, or even higher, prices.
The practice eventually became widely known as shrinkflation, and Chipotle soon became one of the poster children of the industry-wide trend.
In 2024, complaints about shrinking portions at Chipotle exploded across TikTok and other social media platforms, with patrons accusing the chain of serving smaller burritos and bowls while prices kept climbing. The backlash gained momentum after food reviewer Keith Lee posted a viral video criticizing Chipotle’s “crazy low” portions. Customers then began filming employees while placing orders in hopes of getting bigger servings.
Meanwhile, Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem took a more scientific approach, collecting, cataloging, and weighing 75 burrito bowls across eight locations in New York City. He found that the average bowl weighed about 21.5 ounces. The range, though, was a dramatic one with the smallest bowl weighing just 13.8 ounces, while the largest came in at 26.8 ounces.
Chipotle initially denied changing portion sizes, saying “there have been no changes in our portion sizes,” but CEO at the time Brian Niccol later acknowledged during an earnings call that more than 10% of the company’s restaurants had been under-serving customers and needed to be “retrained” and “re-coached” to meet the chain’s standards for “generous portion sizes.”
Customers Aren’t Buying It
All that said, it’s easy to understand why Boatwright, who took the helm as Chipotle CEO in late 2024, is going viral for saying there’s no skimping involved and if customers want more food, they should go ahead and ask for more or spill the beans, if you will.
Chipotle-goers online are taking this to another level of “if you cannot change it, mock it,” having a field day with the corporate 101 advice shared on Reddit.
“Going to keep this screenshot on hand next time I go to Chipotle,” said one user. “Yeah they will give you more and charge double,” said another one.
And almost every user pointed out that the advice sounded like pure PR bull — and that taking a CEO at his word is about as reliable as believing in Santa Claus (sorry kids, he ain’t real).
