14 DAY TRIAL // It would appear that dark times await people who are big fans of guacamole. Long story short, Chipotle Inc. has recently announced that, should climate change and global warming become worse than they currently are, it might be forced to stop making its famous dip.
In a recent report, the chain of restaurants explains that, as shown by several studies, climate change and global warming are bound to foster extreme weather manifestations.
These, in turn, have high chances to have a negative impact on agricultural practices. More precisely, they could make it more difficult to come by some of the ingredients that the company uses to make guacamole.
As these ingredients become scarce, there is little doubt that they will also become more expensive. The way Chipotle Inc. sees things, it could happen that their price will up to such an extent that it would no longer make sense – financially-wise, that is – for the company to buy them.
To make matters even worse, Chipotle Inc. suspects that several other of the dips it currently offers its customers might also be affected by a limited availability of ingredients. Consequently, these too might be pulled off menus.
“Increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients,” the chain of restaurants writes in its report.
“In the event of cost increases with respect to one or more of our raw ingredients we may choose to temporarily suspend serving menu items, such as guacamole or one or more of our salsas, rather than paying the increased cost for the ingredients,” it adds, as cited by Think Progress.
Chipotle Inc. further explains that, unlike other chain of restaurants, it is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change and global warming due to the fact that it has made it its goal to source ingredients from local and sustainable markets.
Due to the fact that they are not all that developed, these markets have high chances be more affected by extreme weather manifestations than markets for commodity food products are. Otherwise put, the producers that Chipotle Inc. buys its ingredients from are more susceptible to ongoing changes in global weather patterns.
The company details that, all things considered, its locations in California are the ones that will be hit the hardest by a lack of ingredients needed to make guacamole. Thus, it says that, although the avocado industry in this state is doing just fine for the time being, it is possible that an increase in local temperatures will cause production to drop by about 40% over the next three decades.
Should avocado production in other regions also be affected by hotter temperatures, the company might have a difficult time getting the 35.4 million pounds of avocado it currently goes through during just one year in order to make guacamole.