Chipotle Is Using Palantir to Score Restaurants for Food Safety Risk

Chipotle is piloting a Palantir-powered system that scores food safety risks at individual restaurants using health inspection results, pest incidents, and employee illnesses, bringing the data company's technology into the burrito chain's safety operations.

Chipotle confirmed the initiative Wednesday after Wired reviewed screenshots of what was described as a "food safety risk platform" built on Palantir's Foundry software. The company has not disclosed when the project began, how many restaurants are using it, or whether it will be expanded across the chain.

The partnership surfaced weeks after Chipotle restaurants received jalapeños tied to an ongoing multistate Salmonella outbreak. The outbreak has sickened 431 people in 32 states and sent 57 to hospitals, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Chipotle began switching jalapeño suppliers at affected restaurants on July 20 and is no longer serving the implicated product. The FDA says the company's response means Chipotle restaurants are not considered an ongoing risk to consumers from the outbreak.

The new system also puts fresh attention on Chipotle's longer food safety history. In 2020, the company agreed to pay a $25 million criminal fine and entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement to resolve federal charges stemming from outbreaks that sickened more than 1,100 people between 2015 and 2018.

Federal prosecutors said Chipotle was implicated in at least five outbreaks connected to restaurants in California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Ohio. Several involved norovirus, which can spread when infected workers handle food.

Employee illness was central to parts of that case. According to the Justice Department, some outbreaks stemmed from restaurant workers failing to follow Chipotle's own food safety procedures, including a policy requiring employees who were sick or had recently been sick to stay out of the workplace.

The agreement required Chipotle to maintain a comprehensive food safety compliance program and evaluate its restaurant audits, staffing, and employee training. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the criminal charges if the company complied with the agreement for three years.

Employee illnesses now appear among the factors feeding into the Palantir platform, alongside health department scores and pest incidents. Screenshots reviewed by Wired indicate the information is used to assign restaurants a food safety score or risk level.

How much worker information enters the system has not been made public. Available reporting does not establish whether employees can be individually identified, what illness information is recorded, or how Chipotle responds when a restaurant receives a heightened risk score.

Palantir already has a presence in the food industry. Its Foundry technology has been used by Tyson Foods, General Mills, and the purchasing cooperative serving Wendy's restaurants for operations including inventory management, supply chain tracking, and identifying potential shortages.

The company also has extensive government business, including work with the FDA, Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alongside its growing commercial operations.

The Chipotle project extends Palantir's technology into restaurant-level food safety, combining inspection records and internal operating data to identify locations that may require closer scrutiny.

Neither company has disclosed the financial terms of the arrangement or whether the pilot will expand across Chipotle's more than 3,700 restaurants.