You can’t deny the fact that people like free burritos and right now, they really, really like free burritos.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has been in full promo mode since February when it began trying to woo back customers scared off by food-safety issues that rocked the booming fast-casual chain.

The Denver-based company launched a nationwide advertising campaign, bolstered its presence on social media, gave out free burrito coupons via mobile devices, and mailed coupons for a free burrito and free chips and salsa to 20 million households.

How are people responding to the offers? Chipotle chief creative and development officer Mark Crumpacker gave the skinny during the company’s earnings call this week:

• Of the 5 million burrito coupons Chipotle issued via the mobile offer, the restaurant chain saw a redemption rate of 67 percent, or 3.35 million free burritos.

• Of the coupons mailed to 20 million households, Chipotle is seeing an average redemption rate of 17.5 percent. By the time those coupons expire May 15, that figure should climb to 20 percent, Crumpacker said.

• That adds up to more than $40 million in free burritos.

“We hit promo, as you know, very, very heavy,” chief financial officer John R. Hartung said during the earnings call, according to the transcript obtained by Bloomberg. “We gave away 6 million entrees during the first quarter, and we did that intentionally. We wanted to signal that the event was over.”

The promotions worked for locals like Lyndsey Skatberg, 32, of Denver. She said she’s more of a Qdoba fan but doesn’t frequent either chain more than once every couple months. She said she thought the food-safety issues were isolated and wasn’t deterred from eating at Chipotle.

“I don’t think the actions or events at one store speak for the brand as a whole,” she said. “If this occurred in Denver, I would potentially avoid the store. I still remember Jack in the Box poisoning people that later died, many years ago.”

Chipotle’s operating costs were $155.2 million during the first quarter, up 36.7 percent from the same period last year. The company plans to spend even more on advertising during the second and third quarters, Hartung said.

Later this year, Chipotle will add “non-traditional marketing,” such as a short film and a promotional game.

In 2013, Chipotle released “The Scarecrow” game app and a companion short film about a scarecrow fighting to escape from industrial “Crow Foods” factory overlords. In 2014, Chipotle tapped actors like Ray Wise, from “Twin Peaks,” for its “Framed and Dangerous” comedy series on Hulu.

Chipotle plans to wean customers off the free offers and lure them with promotions like “buy-one-get-one.” Also coming up: new menu items including chorizo, a spicy blend of chicken and pork.

The company also plans to bolster its mobile apps to reduce ordering, payment and pick-up delays.

“While the company’s largest traditional advertising campaign in its history will continue through June, we expect the company will increasingly focus on more targeted and personalized offers, given more stickiness in changing customer behavior than the shotgun approach of the Rain Check burrito offer,” which stimulated sales but for a short period, Sharon Zackfia, a William Blair analyst, wrote in a research note Wednesday.

But that recovery likely will be slow, she wrote.

“We believe plans to offer more personalized offers to encourage frequency could help further stimulate the recovery, although the best recovery tool may simply be time,” she wrote. “Ultimately, we believe sales and margins can be recovered over the next two years, and see the potential for dramatic stock appreciation from current levels for patient investors over the next 18 to 24 months.”

Alicia Wallace: 303-954-1939, awallace@denverpost.com or @aliciawallace