(Franchise Buy) - By . Updated Apr 7, 2011

Chipotle Launches $10,000 Challenge

(Thursday, April 07, 2011) - For the last five weeks, Chipotle Mexican Grill has wrapped its signature burritos in gold foil to call attention to the chain's use of premium quality ingredients. Now, the company is calling on customers to wrap what they love in gold or silver foil, photograph the object and upload the picture to its website as part of its 'Wrap What You Love' contest.

Throughout the five-week contest, users will compete for prizes for the most creative and most popular entries. Chipotle will award a $10,000 grand prize for its favorite submission, based on creativity, popularity and for adhering to the spirit of the contest. For the entries with the most 'love' votes each week, the company will award 24-karat gold Chipotle coins, with one winner for each of the contest's five-week run.

The company also will contribute $1 to FamilyFarmed.org for each 'love' vote the entries receive (up to $150,000) in support of its programs to help family farmers bring more food to market.

The contest is an extension of Chipotle's 'Unlimited Time Only' campaign where the company is wrapping its burritos in gold foil (rather than the iconic aluminum foil) to call attention to its better ingredients from more sustainable sources. The campaign launched March 1 and runs through June.

'Unlike most restaurant chains, we don't have limited time menu offers – a cornerstone of fast food marketing,' said Mark Crumpacker, Chipotle's chief marketing officer. 'Instead, we created a limited time promotion to highlight the unlimited time nature of our great ingredients. Now, we're letting our customers get in on the action by wrapping their favorite things in gold.'

On the 'Wrap What You Love' site, customers can upload their entries, 'goldify' photos of objects wrapped in standard aluminum foil (a nod to the difficulty of finding gold foil), vote for their favorites, view popular entries, and link their submissions to social networking sites.

Those needing instruction or inspiration can watch tutorial videos featuring comedian and author Amy Sedaris. In one of the vignettes, Sedaris blings her smile with gold foil, while in another she beautifies otherwise sickening fresh-cut flowers with gold foil.

'Our commitment to Food With Integrity isn't a passing fad for us, it's something we have done from the beginning,' said Steve Ells, founder, chairman and co-CEO of Chipotle. 'We have always used the best ingredient we can find, and are always looking to improve them. Now that we're telling our customers about that commitment, we thought it would be fun to turn the tables and let them tell us what's important to them.'