Ipo Project - Chipotle Mexican Grill

IPO Project -Chipotle Mexican Grill,

About company

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. and its subsidiaries has operated 1,084 restaurants in the United States, two in Toronto, Canada and one in London, England till December 31, 2010.Over the past five years, company has experienced grown up greatly and substantially, and expect to their big rally of 2011, new openings between 135 and 145 restaurants are expected to operate in 2011.

Chipotle is working to change the way people think about and eat fast food by looking to fine-dining restaurants for inspiration. Chipotle use high quality ingredients, classic cooking methods to make good tasting food, have top performing people to take care of each customer, and make restaurants operationally efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

Unlike other company, Chipotle serve a focused menu of tacos, burritos, salads and burrito bowls (a burrito without the tortilla), made using fresh ingredients. Highlights of company is that they pursue the vision of "Food with Integrity"--which means finding the best raw ingredients from the best sources, including naturally raised meats, where the animals are fed a vegetarian diet and not given antibiotics or hormones. They even have their own farms to raise animals and grow vegetables since they have a focus menu, not too many ingredients.

Company position in industry

Chipotle is in the category of the fast-casual segment of the restaurant industry which competes against other segments of the restaurant industry, including quick-service restaurants and casual dining restaurants. Competition also exists in the fast-casual restaurant segment, primarily on taste, quality and the freshness of the menu items and the ambience and condition of each restaurant. And what is the performance of Chipotle and fast-casual segment in the whole industry? According to the recently released Technomic report of the top 500 largest U.S. restaurant chains, fast casual concepts hold seven out of the top 10 positions, with Five Guys leading the way. In total, the top 10 fastest-growing chains' sales accounted for $7.8 billion, an 18 percent increase over 2009.

Industry trend

The consumer demand for fast casual grew 17 percent during the last three years while the rest of the industry experienced their sharply declines. In 2009, compare to fast food down 2 percent and casual dining down 4 percent, fast casual segment was up 5 percent. In 2010, fast casual still lead the industry with steadily up 5 percent, while fast food still down 1 percent and casual dining down 2 percent.

(According to a study by foodservice market research firm The NPD Group)