Farmed And Dangerous: A Comedy Series From Chipotle

In a joint venture with Piro, a New York-based studio, Chipotle has announced the upcoming arrival of an original comedy series that will poke fun at the sometimes shady world of corporate agriculture. The four-part series is designed as a vehicle to communicate Chipotle's committment to sustainable agriculture, and the subsequent challenged posed by the more nefarious side of farming on a large level. "We think of 'Farmed and Dangerous' as a values-integration rather than typical product-integration," said Mark Crumpacker, Chipotle's chief marketing and development officer in a statement for Business Wire. "The show addresses issues that we think are important — albeit in a satirical way — without being explicitly about Chipotle." 

It should be noted that the company kept the familial ties quite loose—the four-part series, which will begin streaming on Hulu February 17, 2014, includes very few references to its maker, according to a review from The New York Times. There are no scenes filmed inside a Chipotle or raving reviews of the restaurant fare. The main character, though, is named Chip.

Instead, the show will focus on the world corporate agriculture, featuring PetroPellet, a petroleum-based animal feed developed by Animoil, a fictional company promising to reduce the industry's reliance on oil by eliminating the company the need to grow and transport all the feed used to raise livestock. Then, a security leak in the form of a viral video exposes some undesirable information to the public. It's up to the company's marketing wizard, played by Ray Wise (Twin Peaks, Mad Men) to undo the damage.

Farmed and Dangerous follows two short films from Chipotle: Scarecrow in 2013 and Back to the Start in 2011, both of which were made to increase public awareness of the complicated path from the farm to the table. Daniel Rosenberg, co-creator of the show alongside Tim Piper, told Business Wire, "We hope the show inspires other brands to communicate through more strategic and entertaining creative that is really representative of who they are, and what they are doing to make a better world." Watch the trailer on Farmed and Dangerous.