Are your fast food meals getting smaller? Wall St analyst who ordered the same take out 75 times reveals his shock findings
A Wall Street analyst has decided to end the debate over whether portion sizes at fast food restaurants are finally getting smaller.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team recently investigated the theory that Chipotle is skimping on its typically large portion sizes after a series of videos posted on TikTok showed employees barely filling their burritos.
The team ordered and weighed 75 bowls at eight locations in New York City, keeping the variables the same by ordering the same ingredients: white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese, and lettuce. according to Barons.
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.
Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem wanted to test the theory that Chipotle wallets are getting smaller
He and his team ordered 75 burrito bowls from eight different locations in New York City
The largest burrito bowl the team ordered weighed 700 grams, while the smallest weighed only 400 grams.
Of all 75 burrito bowls — which were distributed for Wells Fargo analyst lunches — the average weight was about 21.5 ounces (650 grams).
Fadem’s investigation follows months of claims from TikTokers that Chipotle employees skimped on ingredients.
The trend started in early May, when Keith Lee — a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic with more than 16 million followers on the app — posted a video of himself eating a burrito bowl that apparently didn’t contain the chicken he ordered.
“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.
He wrote in the video’s caption that he “couldn’t allow” the employee to “disrespect me with that protein measure,” the Guardian reports.
The investigation came after TikTokers spent months alleging that Chipotle employees were skimping on their ingredients
That video apparently started a trend where people filmed Chipotle employees filling their burritos.
One of the videos shows a worker refusing to fill the bottom of a bowl.
He later added only “eight pieces of steak,” according to the video, in which the creator can be heard saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me, bro. You gotta put more in there.”
But CEO Brian Niccol denied amid all the commotion that portions were getting smaller.
“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 continued, saying that if someone wanted more of a certain topping, they could just ask.
Laurie Schalow, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Chipotle, 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 had adjusted portion sizes.
Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol denies portion sizes are getting smaller
But Chipotle workers have suggested there could be any number of reasons why customers are getting less food, with one telling the Guardian that she tends to give customers who film her smaller portions.
“We actually eat smaller portions because we don’t want to officially violate Chipotle’s portion control policy,” Atulya Dora-Laskey said.
“You can get in trouble with your boss if you overfeed a customer,” she explained.
Sometimes customers get less food because the restaurant is running out of a certain ingredient.
According to Dora-Laskey, the company is experiencing staff shortages and it can take “a very long time” to create a new protein if there aren’t enough workers scheduled on a given day.
“If the chicken or meat that the customer asks for runs out, it can take 20 to 40 minutes to get something back. That means there’s going to be a lot of angry customers,” she said.
‘So you’ll probably do your best to give them as little as possible.’
Despite the frustrations, Chipotle generated $9.9 billion in revenue last year, with sales increasing 7 percent in the most recent quarter.
The company has now overtaken competitors such as McDonald’s, with more than 3,400 locations in the United States and a total market value of $86 billion.