Does filming your Chipotle order being made get you bigger portions? We put the ‘life hack’ to the test
Chipotle has faced a wave of criticism for being too stingy with portion sizes.
The burrito giant has been accused of cutting corners on everything from beans to vegetables to its prized protein-packed offerings like chicken, steak and carne asada.
The result: a trend that has seen several TikTok users claim they get larger portions by filming the wait staff, implying that Chipotle employees are being more generous under the pressure of their mobile phone camera lenses.
DailyMail.com decided to investigate the situation and shopped at two locations of the fast food chain in downtown Manhattan, filming at one location and respecting the privacy of the other location.
“Filming doesn’t result in bigger portions,” a Chipotle PR rep said after TikTok users started filming servers making their orders. DailyMail.com has now investigated two Manhattan locations of the fast-food burrito chain (our weight test is pictured above).
A war has been raging for over two months between Gen Z influencers and TikTok users on one side and Chipotle staff on the other, over the allegedly stingier new portions
Although our data collection efforts fell far short of the standards of a true scientific study, our test produced results that no proponent of this “life hack” expected.
DailyMail.com ordered identical steak and chicken burrito bowls at both locations to compare and contrast portion sizes based on weight.
The chicken burrito bowl called for all the vegetable toppings you could want, plus beans and hot sauce, including the “fajita”-style roasted peppers and onions.
For the steak bowl, the fajita vegetables were omitted and cheese was added to the mixture.
Contrary to the claims of countless passionate Chipotle consumers on TikTok, the burrito bowls were lighter overall where we measured: about 1 to 2 ounces, at least.
A likely explanation for these inverse findings was made public by Chipotle employee Atulya Dora-Laskey, who works at a store in Lansing, Michigan.
“We’re actually going lighter on portions because we don’t want to officially violate Chipotle’s portion control policy,” Dora-Laskey said. The guard in June.
“You can get in trouble with your boss if you overfeed a customer,” she explained, as the franchise has strict official guidelines on scoop size.
| meal | by recorded server | by unregistered server | by corporate section guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| chicken burrito bowl | 26.90 ounces | 28.15 ounces | 26 ounces |
| steak burrito bowl | 25.05 ounces | 28.80 ounces | 25 ounces |
Chipotle is under fire for issues with the size of their online and in-store orders differing from each other
Chipotle’s “pocket guide for portion sizes,” leaked on Reddit two years ago, does indeed show what the prescribed proportions should be for each burrito ingredient.
We used those tables ourselves and the ingredients for the chicken and steak bowls from DailyMail.com. With this guide we were able to determine how much weight our burrito bowls should have had.
The chicken burrito bowl should have weighed 700 grams.
The steak burrito bowl, with fewer vegetables and 28 grams of cheese, would weigh 735 grams.
These numbers are so close to the Chipotle location’s recorded number of these bowls that the experiment lends credence to Dora-Laskey’s claims.
Chipotle’s “crew pocket guide for portion sizes,” which leaked on Reddit two years ago (above), does indeed show — both visually and per ounce — what the prescribed ratios are for each burrito ingredient, as directed by Chipotle’s corporate office.
“You could get in trouble with your boss if you give a customer too much food,” Chipotle employee Atulya Dora-Laskey explained, noting that recording would likely result in less food for the customer, “because we don’t want to go on record as violating Chipotle’s portion control policy.”
Estimates for Chipotle’s official serving size guidelines are so close to the weights provided by our videotaped Chipotle location’s service that the experiment lends credence to Dora-Laskey’s claims. Above, one of our experimental chicken burrito bowls, ready to eat
The DailyMail.com burrito bowl results also matched the weight figures reported in a much larger study of 75 orders from the chain, which Wells Fargo analysts conducted in a playful manner.
The analysts, as they told Baronscame to a median weight of about 21.5 ounces — a few ounces less than DailyMail.com’s orders, but close.
The largest burrito bowl the team, led by Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem, managed to obtain weighed 700 grams, while the smallest weighed just 400 grams.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem wanted to test the theory that Chipotle wallets are getting smaller
Fadem’s team ordered and weighed their 75 test bowls at eight locations in New York City and kept the variables the same by ordering the same ingredients: white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese and lettuce, Barrons said.
When they finally got back to the office, they discovered that the consistency of the burrito bowls varied greatly from restaurant to restaurant.
The study found that some locations served bowls that were up to 33 percent heavier than others.
The outcry over Chipotle’s portion sizes appears to have really started in early May, thanks to Keith Lee, a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic.
Lee posted a video to his 16 million-plus followers on the app, in which the influencer is apparently depicted opening a burrito bowl, only to find the chicken he ordered nowhere to be found.
“These portions are insane,” he said said in the video.
Later that month, another influencer, Isaac Francis, filmed himself ordering from Chipotle and indignantly asking for more rice and chicken.
Couldn’t resist [the employee] “No respect for me with that protein size,” Francis captioned his video.
In late May, as the intensity of the TikTok debate reached a fever pitch, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccolò denied on camera that portions had shrunk.
Jewel Diaz, whose TikTok handle is @jeweldiaz, posted a video on April 8 showing off her large bowl of Chipotle food while sitting in her car
Other TikTok users have shared their own experiences ordering food from Chipotle, with some of them claiming to be former or current employees at one of their locations
“We always want to give people big portions to get them excited about the food,” he says. said Fortune.
“That’s kind of who we are,” the CEO said, adding that anyone at the chain could simply ask for more toppings on their favorite burrito.
Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, also told CNN that the size of the bowls may vary depending on the number of ingredients a customer chooses or whether they choose to make an ingredient ‘light’ or ‘extra light’.
She also denied that the company has adjusted portion sizes.
A company spokesperson directly addresses the TikTok ‘life hack’ told the New York Timesin plain terms: ‘Filming does not lead to larger portions.’
DailyMail.com’s analysis, backed by candid statements from Chipotle staff and the Wells Fargo team’s review of the 75 burrito bowls, supports the company’s claim.