“I started Chipotle with the idea to create an experience that's fast -...” — Steve Ells Quote

I started Chipotle with the idea to create an experience that's fast - and not fast food.

Think about the systems at McDonald's. It's a very mechanized world, where you take out a highly processed patty.

I use a lot of citrus for seasoning. There's lemon or lime juice in just about everything, and that balances with salt very nicely. Things like toasted cumin seeds for the beans. The use of fresh herbs like oregano and cilantro.

I am deeply sorry that people got sick from eating at our restaurants. It's the worst thing that can happen.

You cannot take shortcuts. We've shown that we can spend more on ingredients, not less, and charge a fair price.

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.

Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.

I was one of the first six black kids to integrate a formerly all-white school. I remember being looked at all the time and people laughing at my hair. I was also very self-conscious about the food I had for lunch. I had egg sandwiches, and the other mothers gave kids fancy stuff like bologna and Marmite. It took about a year to settle in.

But it's a disgrace that food banks are needed in the first place, patching up the holes left by an inefficient and downright barbaric attack on the meagre safety net of what remains of a notion of 'social security'.