Hello! Today is Friday 13th October… triskaidekaphobics might be steering clear of black cats until things even out. Today we're exploring:
Wrapped in riches
Your next burrito bowl may set you back more than you expect: the Mexican fast food chain Chipotle announced plans to increase prices again, marking the 4th such increase in the last 2 years.
Details on the price hikes are thin on the ground, but justifications for them are plentiful, with the company blaming soaring ingredient costs and rising wages. Whatever the logic, Chipotle is raising prices because it can, with the brand arguably in its strongest position in the company’s history. Since 2001, Chipotle sales have skyrocketed some 65x, reaching $8.6 billion last year, equivalent to growing revenue ~22% every year for 21 years.
There's a few reasons for Chipotle's rapid growth: quick and tasty food, of course, but also a relatively rare business model in the world of fast food. Unlike most of its main rivals, such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Subway, Chipotle doesn’t franchise its restaurants. With every site owned and run by the company, Chipotle HQ can, in theory, keep a close eye on the day-to-day running of every outlet — although it failed to prevent an outbreak of E. Coli and food poisoning that was linked to some of its restaurants, which sent sales plummeting in 2015/16.
Auto-assemble
The price hikes come just a week after Chipotle announced it was testing a robot that can assemble burrito bowls and salads. If successful, it would help the company meet the growing demand for those products, which make up some 65% of Chipotle's digital orders.
Bad ACTing
The US student population needs to get its act together… or, more specifically, its ACTs — scores for the college admission tests sunk to 30-year lows for the class of 2023.
The average overall score dropped to 19.5 out of 36, the 6th consecutive year that the composite score has declined, with marks in English, math, reading, and science all down at least 1 full point since 2020, and English results falling the most on a relative basis.
College ready (or not)
First introduced in 1959, the ~3-hour ACT exams gauge how ready high schoolers are for college across 4 core subjects. Colleges and universities use the results, in conjunction with SAT scores, to assess prospective students’ applications.
Admissions officers may come under pressure to make their current policies a little more lenient moving forward, as 43% of the class of ‘23 failed to meet the readiness benchmarks across any of the core subject areas. American College Testing, the non-profit organization behind the assessments, pointed to the pandemic as an explanation for the results, highlighting the fact that the “COVID cohort” of students were in their first year of high school when the pandemic broke out.
Interestingly, the same body published a study in August that found evidence of dramatic grade inflation in high schools across the US over the past 12 years — so these poor ACT scores likely came as an even bigger shock to unwitting parents.
Squarely back in business
Times Square is buzzing brightly once again, as the glitzy attraction recently celebrated its 180th business opening since the pandemic — finally surpassing the 179 businesses that Covid-19 permanently shuttered.
As rubbing shoulders with strangers was the last thing on anyone's mind during the pandemic, daily visitor numbers plummeted from an average of over 360,000 in 2019 to just 125,000 in 2020, only inching up to a little over 172,000 the following year, per the Times Square Alliance.
Having once held the coveted title of the most visited location in the world, reaching its pre-pandemic neon highs was never going to happen overnight for Times Square. However, with businesses reopening, hotel bookings are also on the up — the area accounted for a quarter of the $1.9 billion worth of hotel transactions in Manhattan this year. Although visitor numbers have inched closer to 2019 levels so far in 2023, no month has yet brought the iconic intersection back to its former footfall heights.
• The EU has given Meta 24 hours to respond about rising disinformation on its platforms in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel, after giving X similar warnings earlier this week.
• iGen: 87% of US teenagers own an iPhone according to a new survey.
• It’s been a mixed week for Microsoft after the IRS informed the company it owed $29 billion in unpaid taxes on Wednesday, only for its long-awaited deal to acquire Activision to be cleared by British regulators today.
• Bear 128, otherwise known as Grazer, just became the third female winner of Fat Bear Week after racking up a whopping 108,321 votes in the final.
• Mapping the cycling hotspots in the US.
• Naturally funny: the finalists of the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.
Off the charts: Which streamer, which is looking to open new destinations where fans can experience the worlds of their favorite shows, did we do a financial breakdown of in our Streamonomics Deep Dive? [Answer below].
