The Real Reason Chipotle Is Raising Prices This Summer

More bad news for people who enjoy eating at Chipotle on the regular – prices are going up again. August will see yet another price hike at the fast-casual Mexican joint, to the tune of 4%, reports Food Business News. This comes on the heels of another looming Chipotle price increase very recently in April of 2022. Since many restaurants are jacking up prices thanks to historic inflation, a lot of people won't be too surprised by this upcoming development. They won't be happy about it, but they won't be surprised, either.

The price uptick will in part cover the rapidly rising costs of staple items like tortillas, dairy ingredients, and food packaging (per Food Business News). Dairy items, like milk and cheese, have been especially hard hit during the food inflation crisis, with overall dairy prices up 11.8% since last year, says Food Dive. The most recent monthly comparisons had dairy leaving other food groups in the dust, with a month-to-month hike of 2.9%. However, food costs aren't the only reason that Chipotle prices are on the upswing.

Chipotle is attempting to make improvements to their stores' productivity by way of a "new labor management tool," Food Business News says. Utilization of this tool should help the chain in its quest to prioritize the basic essentials of its business and will in fact retrain employees on certain skills and services to improve customer satisfaction.

Ideally, these efforts will help restaurants to operate more seamlessly for both digital and in-person orders and will improve hospitality, order accuracy, wait times, and so on. This is all expected to impact both longtime and new stores. The restaurant chain has opened 42 locations in the last quarter, 32 of which included the big change coming to Chipotle locations, the Chipotlane drive-thru option.

Still, the price increase might be frustrating to some loyal customers as the restaurant recently reported great earnings. In fact, at $2.2 billion in revenues, quarterly earnings are up 17% since this time last year, Food Business News reports. Here's hoping the food inflation crisis can level out a bit so that people can go back to eating more reasonably priced food.