NEW YORK — Chipotle says it stopped serving pork at hundreds of its restaurants after suspending a supplier that violated its standards.
Arnold said most of the issues related to the violations concerned the housing for the pigs. Chipotle demands that its suppliers raise pigs in humane conditions with access to the outdoors, rather than in cramped pens.
On other occasions, Chipotle customers may have noticed signs saying a restaurant is serving meat that doesn't meet the company's "responsibly raised" standards. That's typically because Chipotle has trouble securing supplies of beef raised without antibiotics or hormones, Arnold said. The company then serves beef that was "conventionally raised."
"In this case, we won't make that kind of substitution," Arnold said in an email.
Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for The Humane Society of the United States, said that most breeding pigs in the country are kept in gestation crates with concrete floors. Pigs that are raised with access to the outdoors or bedding represent a "very small portion of the pork industry," he said.
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