The Scarecrow

Since its release 3 days ago, Chipotle’s YouTube video, The Scarecrow, has generated scads of publicity and media attention, stirred controversy and angered folks in the food processing industry.

The restaurant chain is taking aim at Big-Food and courting Millennials who want to eat better, eat local—and brand lightly.

“In a dystopian fantasy world, all food production is controlled by fictional industrial giant Crow Foods. Scarecrows have been displaced from their traditional role of protecting food, and are now servants to the crows and their evil plans to dominate the food system. Dreaming of something better, a lone scarecrow sets out to provide an alternative to the unsustainable processed food from the factory.” ~form the Chipotle website

The film was created by Academy Award–winning Moonbot Studios and is set to a remake of the song “Pure Imagination” (performed by Grammy Award–winning artist Fiona Apple) from the 1971 film classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The Scarecrow video is a promotion for Chipotle’s free iOS game of the same name and, coming early next year, four TV show–length Farmed and Dangerous short movies.

“We’re trying to educate people about where their food comes from,” Chipotle chief marketing officer Mark Crumpacker tells USA Today. And, not coincidentally, the company is also trying to win over millennials, the coveted twenty-something cohort that Crumpacker says is “skeptical of brands that perpetuate themselves.”

Last year, Chipotle served more than 10,000,000 pounds of local produce. Holthouse Farms is one of more than 40 producers selling to local Chipotle restaurants.

Niman Ranch Pork Company founder and pig farmer, Paul Willis, talks about reconstructing and restoring tall grass prairie lands and, below, shares his story of raising free-range, pasture raised pigs for Chipotle.