Though neither freezing nor preparing off-site means flavour has to deteriorate. Frozen food can be preferable to chilled ingredients (whenever you can't get th

Though neither freezing nor preparing off-site means flavour has to deteriorate. Frozen food can be preferable to chilled ingredients (whenever you can't get them really fresh). And much prep can be done half a day or a day in advance (as basically all restaurants do it), doing so in a centralised location shouldn't have any negative effect on flavour. But in Chipotle's case, switching ingredients and preparation methods as a quick response to the outbreak probably led to sub-par standards and lower quality ingredients. It's not that easy changing the whole supply chain in a matter of months.