Chipotle has no plans for more price hikes: CFO

Chipotle (CMG) proved that its pricing power was here to stay in its latest earnings report. The fast-casual chain saw a 10.9% boost to same-store sales along with a renewed return to in-person dining, which jumped 22.9% since the same quarter last year despite raising prices roughly 10%.

Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung told Yahoo Finance Live that the company doesn't have "a great crystal ball in this kind of environment" when it comes to predicting pricing fluctuations, but they continue to hope for stabilization.

"We still think there's likely to be some pressure on beef," he says. "We haven't seen that inflation in what we've bought so far in the first quarter, but we think that may come down the road," he adds.

Despite an unpredictable inflation landscape, Hartung says they "don't have any plans to make any price increases."

You can watch Julie Hyman, Brad Smith and Brian Sozzi's full interview with Jack Hartung here.

Key Video Moments:

00:00:08 - Mixed pricing picture

00:00:28 - We don't have a crystal ball

00:00:48 - No price increase plans

Video Transcript

JACK HARTUNG: Three, four, or five months ago, kind of everything was going up. And as everything was going up, the outlook was that it's going to go up even more and it a very tough environment. Now we're seeing some items are going up, some are going down. For example, we did have a number of items, some of our oil, some of our salsas, our tortillas in the first quarter did go up, but they were offset by lower avocado costs.

And so this balancing out has made it kind of a flattish, or I'll call it a stable overall inflation period. Our hope is-- we obviously don't have a great crystal ball in this kind of environment. Our hope is there's that kind of stabilization. We still think there's likely to be some pressure on beef.

There's still a little bit more demand than supply. We haven't seen that inflation in what we bought so far in the first quarter, but we think that may come down the road. But so far, there's at least some offsets along the road.

So in our case, we don't have any plans to take any price increases. We're going to watch what happens with all of our ingredients, not just if some goes go up, hopefully some will go down. But so far, it's a lot more stable now than it had been in the last 18 months.