Customers at Charlottesville’s Chipotle Mexican Grill can load up their burritos with even more local ingredients this summer, as it expects to source 30 percent of its bell peppers from Roundabout Farm in Keswick.

     The restaurant already serves 300 pounds of carnitas (that’s Chipotlese for braised pork) from Polyface Farm in Swoope each week. The Harrisonburg location also recently started sourcing Polyface pork. Last year, Chipotle’s regional operations director, Phil Petrilli, and Roundabout farmer Megan Weary met while speaking to a UVA class about sustainability. “I was impressed that for Chipotle, this wasn’t about marketing; it was about the importance of good, clean food,” says Weary. “Phil ended up asking

me what we grow, so I said, ‘What do you buy?’”

     Roundabout planted a half-acre of peppers this year, with about 60 percent headed for Chipotle, up to 250 poundsa week. “Our peppers are smaller than what they’re used to, so I know they take more time to prep,” says Weary. “But nobody has ever said they need to be bigger. "This is a national corporation willing to work with us to source local, natural ingredients.”

     “It’s part of our thought process to support local farms and reduce shipping times,” says Rich Waldo, Chipotle’s regional team director. “We’re just trying to use the best ingredients, and local farms like Roundabout are often the best way to do that.” 

     Waldo says that the Charlottesville Chipotle is unique in its effort to work directly with local farms, a relationship confirmed by Weary: “We just pull the station wagon up to the back door and ring the bell It’s just like working with any other local restaurant.”