Since unveiling its Cultivate Next venture fund in 2022 and doubling it to $100 million in February, Chipotle’s investments have centered on a mix of automation, sustainability, and supply innovation tools. What it hasn’t included is a restaurant concept itself. That changed Tuesday as Chipotle announced two more commitments—AI supply chain platform Lumachain, and Brassica, a fast casual from Columbus, Ohio, founded in September 2015 that began in a 1,600-square foot venue.
Chipotle said Brassica, which has six units and lives within the growing Mediterranean segment, aligns with the company’s commitment to using “real, fresh ingredients and making craveable food daily,” Nate Lawton, chief business development officer, said in a statement.
Cultivate Next will make a minority investment in the brand. Chipotle said this will help Brassica open new locations and expand to different markets.
Like Chipotle, Brassica features a front-line ordering experience. Its stores are built with natural materials. Signature menu items include house-made falafel, baked-to-order organic pita, antibiotic-free meats, roasted vegetables, Brassica seasoned fries, vegan tahini chocolate chip cookies, and fresh-squeezed minty pink lemonade.
Its menu was inspired by the founders’ Lebanese heritage. Guests pick from a sandwich, salad, or hummus plate and then load up the toppings.
Some offerings are inspired by the name itself—a nod to the Brassica family of vegetables (like cabbage, kale, and cauliflower).
Brassica is a family business owned by husband-wife team Kevin and Katy Malhame, and Kevin’s brother Darren Malhame. The group run a collection of concepts across the state. Kevin and Katy opened the family’s first restaurant, Northstar Cafe, in 2004. Darren became a partner in the company in 2005. They have since opened five additional Northstar Cafes around Ohio, with locations in Cincinnati and Cleveland as well. In 2009, the family opened their American bistro, Third & Hollywood, in Grandview, a neighborhood near downtown Columbus.
Before running restaurants, Katy and Kevin worked in the industry. Katy was a restaurant manager at Cameron Mitchell Restaurants in Columbus, while Kevin had a career as manager with the Hillstone Restaurant Group, and with Chipotle. “”I’ve admired Chipotle since it was a small collection of burrito shops in Denver, which is why I chose to work there early in my career,” Kevin said in a statement. “We are incredibly grateful to have Chipotle as our partner to help provide the resources we need to build Brassica into a beloved national brand.”



Chipotle last held a restaurant investment in Pizzeria Locale, a fast-casual spinoff created by restaurateurs Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson. Chipotle invested in 2013, but the concept shuttered permanently in July 2023. At the time, it had five units in the Denver metro area.
It also closed all 15 of its ShopHouse Asian Kitchen units, a brand Chipotle first opened in 2011, in March 2017. The company opened one store of a burger fast casual, Tasty Made—in Lancaster, Ohio, in 2016—before deciding to close that as well in March 2018.
Additionally, Chipotle tried a Farmesa Fresh Eatery spinoff in spring 2023 but abandoned the concept about a year later after Kitchen United closed its ghost kitchens.
Lumachain, based in Sydney, Australia, is a minority female-founded company that’s developed a traceability solution that, in real time, tracks the origin, location, and condition of individual items in a supply chain, Chipotle said. The system enables reduced waste and boosts efficiency.
Lumachain’s traceability platform is complemented by a Computer Vision AI platform that monitors operations inside food production plants to improve quality, efficiency, and safety.
“The visibility in real time and quality data analytics that Lumachain’s software provides could optimize the management and quality of perishable goods for the food service industry,” Curt Garner, chief customer and technology officer at Chipotle, said in a statement.
Tuesday’s investments join the following thus far:
- Local Line: A local food sourcing platform serving farmers, producers, food hubs, and food buyers. Chipotle has helped the company digitize operations, increase customers, and expand its farm database, and in turn, Local Line has helped the fast casual meet local produce sourcing goals.
- GreenField Robotics: A company looking to streamline regenerative farming by using AI, robotics, and sensing technology. It uses robots that can weed crops day and night without as much need for toxic herbicides.
- Nitricity: A company aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating environmentally friendly fertilizer products. The firm is using Chipotle’s funds to scale production of nitrogen, strengthen infrastructure, and launch a commercial product.
- Meati Foods: A company serving food products made from mushroom root. It’s assisting with Chipotle’s plant-based menu innovation efforts.
- Zero Acre Farms: A company that created a new category of healthy oils and fats made by fermentation. Chipotle is testing Zero Acre Farms at its Cultivate Center test kitchen in Irvine, California.
- Vebu: A product development company that’s helping Chipotle scale the Autocado, a robot that can cut, core, and peel avocados. The Autocado, on average, takes roughly 26 seconds to fully flesh out the fruit inside an avocado. Vebu and Chipotle worked with certified training managers from locations to analyze the company’s prep process and identify which tasks were swallowing the most time, as well as which were rated less favorably among crew members. In stores across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Chipotle is expected to use about 5.18 million cases of avocados this year, or 129.5 million pounds of fruit. The current iteration of Autocado features an updated design and size agnostic avocado process abilities. So the machine recognizes variability and automatically adjusts to accommodate the size of avocados being loaded.
- Hyphen: A foodservice platform being used to develop an automated digital makeline. The machine builds bowls and salads underneath while employees use the top makeline to craft burritos, tacos, and quesadillas. About 65 percent of all Chipotle digital orders, the company said, are bowls or salads.
In September, Chipotle said Hyphen and the Autocado were officially being tested in live restaurants. Hyphen was running at Chipotle’s Corona del Mar, California, restaurant at 3050 East Coast Highway and the Autocado at the brand’s Huntington Beach, California, unit at 20972 Magnolia St.
Chipotle is also working on implementing a new dual-sided grill that was tested in 10 restaurants over the past year. It cooks chicken and steak in roughly half the time it takes on Chipotle’s plancha, with consistent execution and the same sear and char.
Chipotle in Q2 posted same-store sales gains of 11.1 percent, well ahead of Wall Street’s consensus prediction of 9.2 percent. Also, 8.7 percent stemmed from transaction growth—the brand’s strongest traffic result in three years. The brand’s Q2 traffic was a sequential acceleration on both a one- and two-year basis.
Chipotle opened 52 company-run units in Q2, including 46 with the order-ahead pickup “Chipotlane,” as well as an international licensed restaurant. The company expects to bring 275–315 new stores to market in fiscal 2024, with 80 percent of those featuring a Chipotlane.