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Guacamole lovers would likely think a long-running trade fight between the U.S. and Mexico could have a substantial impact on Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) due to the Newport Beach restaurant chain’s reliance on avocados. About 90% of U.S. avocado imports come from Mexico.
Think again. OC’s most valuable public company once sourced 85% of its avocados from Mexico, but now that figure is down to 50%, Scott Boatwright, Chipotle’s CEO, told analysts in late February.
“Our supply chain team has done a remarkable job over the last couple of years with vendor diversification and moving some country of origin out of Mexico proper,” Boatwright said. “Today, we source from Colombia (and) Peru, as well as the Dominican Republic.”
The Wall Street Journal last week featured Chipotle’s multi-year effort at diversifying its supply chain, noting that the $70 billion-valued firm “estimates that it bought around 5% of all the avocados consumed in the U.S. last year,” an amount that totals about 132 million pounds.
The chain’s also looking domestically. “We essentially take every avocado from California that we can,” Jack Hartung, Chipotle’s chief strategy officer, told the WSJ.
Hartung announced plans to retire last year as CFO but was convinced to stay after Chipotle’s then CEO Brian Niccol departed for Starbucks. Hartung won a Business Journal CFO of the Year Award in the public company sector in 2020.
It’s not clear whether any of Chipotle’s guacamole comes from Irvine Valencia Growers, the local produce firm that oversees an 800-acre avocado orchard in North Irvine that’s “one of the most sustainable, naturally driven agriculture operations of its size in Southern California.”
The owner of IVG? The Irvine Company.
Close followers of the Irvine Company were likely left wanting with Bloomberg Businessweek’s March 27 lengthy feature on Donald Bren; the over 4,000-word piece on the country’s wealthiest real estate owner, titled “The Secretive Billionaire Behind America’s Most Corporate City,” counted no involvement from Bren and just one quote from an Irvine Co. spokesperson.
The feature relied heavily on prior reporting, thoughts from area residents and politicians, and a handful of quotes from anonymous ex-Irvine Co. officials.
We’re not sure where some story facts came from, including the claim that the thriving city, with a population near 320,000, counts “about 450,000 jobs.” Most estimates put the jobs-to-residents ratio for Irvine at around one to one.
A few non-core business lines were noted in the story, such as a solar-power installation business and the avocado farming operations.
Other Irvine Co. business lines you might not be familiar with include marina operations, a large self-storage business and a substantial collection of cell site properties.