Chipotle's customers and employees complain about 'inedible' and 'stringy' avocados in guacamole

• Chipotle customers and employees have been complaining about the quality of guacamole they say was made with hard and stringy avocados. 
• "On the worst days I could literally punch an avocado, which is supposed to be soft and easy to mash, and it wouldn't leave a dent," said a Chipotle employee from Massachusetts, whose store stopped serving guacamole on certain days this summer due to "terrible" avocados. 
• "Due to the seasonal transition from Peruvian to Mexican suppliers that happens every year at this time, we are experiencing normal variabilities in our avocados," Laurie Schalow, Chipotle's chief communications officer, said in a statement. 
• Avocado prices have been volatile throughout 2019, prompting companies to search for suppliers outside of Mexico. 
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Chipotle's guacamole - long a customer favorite - has sparked complaints from some customers in recent weeks, as the chain seeks suppliers outside of Mexico. 

Some of the chain's avocados imported from Peru this summer appear to be fueling the backlash. Customers and employees have taken to social media to complain about hard avocados, brown guacamole, and stores without guac in stock. 

Mexican avocados' peak season is from November to April, meaning that Chipotle and other chains often switch to other suppliers during the summer. Laurie Schalow, Chipotle's chief communications officer, told Business Insider that since the summer is coming to a close, the quality difference is a seasonal issue. 

"Due to the seasonal transition from Peruvian to Mexican suppliers that happens every year at this time, we are experiencing normal variabilities in our avocados but we can assure our customers that our guac is still being freshly prepared in our restaurants every day," Schalow said in a statement to Business Insider. 

Chipotle employees have also noticed issues with the avocados, especially when it comes to the ingredient's texture. 

"On the worst days I could literally punch an avocado, which is supposed to be soft and easy to mash, and it wouldn't leave a dent," a Chipotle employee from Massachusetts told Business Insider. "Most days the avocados were still edible but much harder to work with, essentially doubling my time to make the guac and have a decent end product."

The employee said that some days coworkers would tell their boss that they couldn't make guacamole with the "especially terrible" avocados sourced from Peru, meaning that the location had to tell customers that it was not selling guac that day. Online orders with guacamole received coupons for free guac. 

On Reddit, users claiming to be Chipotle employees in New York, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, and Massachusetts said that they had been supplied with hard and "stringy" avocados over the summer. 

One group of Chipotle customers was so distressed by the guacamole made with what they considered "bland," "stringy," and sometimes spoiled avocados that they made a Twitter account called SaveTheGuac. In August and early September, SaveTheGuac tracked down tweets complaining about bad avocados at Chipotle and began reaching out to journalists, including several at Business Insider.

The group told Business Insider via Twitter DM that they began noticing the issues about a month ago. This was the first time, the group of friends said, that they encountered problems with Chipotle's guacamole after tracking consistency across hundreds of visits over more than a decade.

Business Insider's Irene Jiang recently came across some of the problematic guacamole in a keto bowl ordered at a Manhattan Chipotle location. Employees told Business Insider during another visit to the store that the location was sourcing its avocados from Peru. 

"I was perturbed to discover that half my guac was, in fact, a strangely impenetrable avocado slab. It was inedible," Jiang wrote in her review of the keto bowl earlier this week. 

Chipotle's avocado woes

Avocado prices have been volatile throughout 2019, with the price per pound of imports more than doubling from January to June, according to US government data. President Donald Trump's proposed Mexico tariffs sparked concerns that avocados would get even more expensive, with Chipotle's chief financial officer, Jack Hartung, saying in June that tariffs could increase the company's costs by roughly $15 million in 2019. 

Read more: Chipotle could raise burrito prices to cover the $15 million impact of Trump's tariffs

As prices increase and fear of tariffs grow, many American brands have turned to countries other than top importer Mexico for avocados.

In the first half of 2019, the US imported 73 million pounds of avocados from Peru, more than twice as much as the 31 million pounds imported from January through June in 2018, making it the No. 2 source of avocados in the US. Imports from Chile and the Dominican Republic also increased during that period. 

For comparison, the US imported 110 million pounds of avocados from Mexico, roughly in line with 2018's figures.

While Chipotle previously told Bloomberg it planned to buy more Peruvian avocados in 2019 than it had last year, as of Thursday the chain said it has used the same amount of the ingredient as it did in 2018. Schalow told Business Insider on Thursday that the amount of avocados Chipotle used from Peru was "not significantly different" compared to last year's figures. 

Chipotle's guacamole seems likely to become more consistent as the chain finishes its seasonal transition back to Mexican avocados. According to the Massachusetts Chipotle employee who spoke with Business Insider, his location switched back to Mexican avocados roughly a week ago, and quality immediately became more consistent. 

"Hopefully the avocados remain good in the future as it both makes a product the customers enjoy more and also makes my life MUCH easier, considering hard avocados can be surprisingly difficult to work with for what you would expect out of an avocado," the employee said. 

Avocado prices are also becoming less volatile, according to Wells Fargo analyst Jon Tower.

"While still inflationary, avocado prices came off the boil (up 25% vs. 87% in July)," Tower wrote in an early September review of restaurant commodities, noting that the change was good news for Chipotle.