Customers have fillings over Chipotle’s portion sizes.
People on TikTok have been criticizing Chipotle for cutting back on food servings — but the company denies any change.
Laurie Schalow, chief corporate affairs and food safety officer at Chipotle, told People that “there have been no changes in [the company’s] portion sizes.”
“Our intentions are to provide a great experience every time, and our meals have always been completely customizable so guests can vocalize or digitally select their desired portions when choosing from the list of real ingredients,” she said, adding that customers have always been allowed to request more or less of something when ordering.
Discourse over the Chipotle portion sizes started to come up on TikTok after popular food critic Keith Lee — known for being a lover of Chipotle and even has his own item on the menu — said that the food chain isn’t as good as it used to be.
In a May 3 video, Lee reviewed three of his “go-to” items: a steak quesadilla, a chicken al pastor bowl and crispy tortilla chicken tacos.
While he enjoyed the tacos and gave them a high rating, he was disappointed in the quesadilla and chicken bowl.
“The portion’s been crazy low,” he said when eating the bowl. “There’s supposed to be chicken in here. There’s no chicken at all. Where the chicken at?”
He stayed on camera while looking for a single piece of chicken so viewers can see he’s “not lying,” eventually finding a piece of chicken.
“I don’t taste much flavor. Everything is freezing cold…this tastes like it was in the refrigerator,” he complained. “I don’t know if it’s the quality, I don’t know if it’s, like the seasonings, the time — I don’t know what it is.”
Lee added that there were only about four pieces of chicken in the entire $12-13 bowl.
“I just gotta be honest,” he concluded. “I don’t mean no harm in no kind of way. Something changed, and I don’t know what it is.”
TikTok users started “review bombing” the fast-food chain over the portion sizes — so much so that people claiming to be employees at Chipotle are chiming in to say that their managers are instructing them to “fill up anyone’s bowls if they had a phone.”
Schalow confirmed the alleged instructions to People, sharing that “we have reinforced proper portioning with our employees.”
