Gulp! What will they think of next to sell fast food?
By Bruce Horovitz
USA Today
The fast-food world's appetite for new products has finally come to this: pancake on a stick.
Gannett News Service
Yuck, you say? Yum, say executives at Sonic Drive-In.
Sonic Drive-In, a fast-food chain with carhop service, paid heed to a woman in a focus group who wondered what it would be like to put a pancake and sausage on a stick. Well, it's selling like hot cakes.
That's the chain with carhop service where the concept came right from a customer's mouth. A woman in a focus group two years ago wondered whether Sonic could plop a pancake and sausage on a stick, kind of like a corndog.
Three months later, Sonic was testing the product. It rolled out to all 2,400 units this year and has become a top-selling breakfast item.
New product hits are the lifeblood of the $105.5 billion fast-food industry.
Ronald McDonald is starving for the next Big Mac. Taco Bell is ever hungry for its next bell-ringer.
And Burger King is drooling for its next Whopper. So much so that it just took a big gamble and, for the first time, slapped the Whopper name on a non-beef product: the Chicken Whopper.
Skeptics clucked that such a product would fly about the time chickens mooed. But in just three months, the Chicken Whopper became Burger King's most successful new product ever. It has sold 50 million. And its chicken sales jumped 240 percent last month.
Summer is the high season for fast food — business typically picks up about 20 percent — and Burger King is not alone in trying to innovate the menu.
Just as one hit TV show can turn around a network, one hit product can revitalize a fast-food giant. One new hit can amass hundreds of millions of dollars in additional sales.
"Everyone is desperate for the next new widget," says Rob Schafer, president of Creative Culinary Consultants, which advises the chains about what's trendy. "You throw a dozen things against a wall and if you're lucky, one sticks."
Fast fizzles
The rest, of course, flop.
McDonald's failed adult-targeted burger in 1997, the Arch Deluxe, is widely regarded as the industry's worst-ever new product failure. It ultimately cost the company nearly $200 million.
Taco Bell had its own fast-food Titanic in 1996 with Border Lites, a line of better-for-you items that sank faster than an anchor.
And Burger King failed miserably three years ago with its attempt to sell crispier french fries than McDonald's by coating them in potato starch.
Some new products are destined for failure from the get-go.
Arby's tried loading cheddar cheese, bacon bits and sour cream on top of french fries, but the product tasted so bad after it got cold that the idea was scrapped. KFC tried to peddle skin-free crispy chicken, but consumers wouldn't accept the weird texture. Taco Bell tried topping a pizza slice with gloppy Mexican toppings, but even teenage boys didn't like the mess.
Then there's the Chili Dog Burger — a combo burger, hot dog and chili with cheese on a bun — that never made it out of test market for Jack in the Box.
Fact is, there may not be any magic bullets left in Fast Food Land. These days, it's more about scattershot with the hope-of-hopes that one will connect big time. That's one reason McDonald's devised its New Tastes menu that lets stores pick from up to 40 menu items on a rotation basis.
Just testing
Clearly, the test kitchen is emerging as fast food's hallowed ground. At McDonald's, you can't step into the test kitchen without knowing the pass code. At Burger King, you need a special escort to get past the electronic locks. And Arby's test kitchen sits smack in front of a 24-hour security guard.
Despite this cloak-and-dagger aura, the formula for a new hit in fast food is surprisingly simple. Here are the Top 10 tips from the makers of recent new product hits:
• Think outside the box.
When chicken products started to fly two years ago, McDonald's challenged its executive chef to create a killer chicken sandwich. Corporate chef Gerald Tomlinson devised the Grilled Chicken Flatbread sandwich. Its key feature actually isn't the chicken, but the soft, pitalike flatbread that it sits on. Other ingredients: pepper jack cheese, tomato, lettuce, grilled onions and creamy dressing.
Result: It's one of McDonald's most successful new products in a decade, says Alex Conti, senior director for menu innovations. McDonald's keeps selling out of it.
• Copy casual.
For several years, the TGI Friday's and Applebee's of the world have been stealing business away from the McDonald's and Burger Kings.
Now, the fast-foodies are fighting back by copying their recipes.
Executives at Jack in the Box saw how hot cheese sticks sold well at casual dining joints. Last year, the chain began testing them.
Dozens of cheesy attractions were considered but the key issue, says product development chief Karen Trissel, was the "pull factor." That's the long, gooey string left behind after biting into a cheese stick. The more pull, the better.
• Make it a bargain.
It's called the Six Dollar Burger. But since Carl's Jr. introduced it last summer, it has sold for $3.95.
The chain gave it the misleading name to remind customers that while they're paying top-dollar for a premium burger, it's still about $2 less than what similar burgers cost at casual dining chains.
At Friday's, a cheeseburger goes for an average $6.49; at Chili's, it usually sells for $5.69. But unlike at Carl's Jr., both include fries.
The Six Dollar Burger has been such a success that the chain recently granted it "icon" status, says John Koncki, director of product development. Menu boards have elevated it right next to the best-selling Super Star Burger.
• Keep it convenient.
Executives at Taco Bell took notice two years ago of the success that grocers have had in selling frozen, ready-to-heat meals in a bowl. So 15 employees on Taco Bell's food development team were assigned the task of developing the chain's first meal in a bowl.
Last December, Taco Bell began testing the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl. It enlarged the lip of the bowl after customers complained that the food fell out when they mixed it. And it added red tortilla strips after a woman in a focus group suggested it would make the dish look more appetizing. "This is an art," says Greg Creed, chief marketing officer, "not just a science."
The meal in a bowl, at $2.99, went national June 18.
• Bag the burger.
Burger King knows it has to stretch beyond burgers to increase business. Yet between December 1998 and March 2001, Burger King didn't introduce any new product nationally.
During that time, Burger King lost 17 percent of its customer base. The No. 1 reason cited by customers: a lack of new products.
So in April 2001, the company began its search for the Chicken Whopper. Hundreds of ideas — and ingredients — were tossed out. In very un-Whopperlike fashion, out went the onions, pickles and, yes, even ketchup. In stayed the lettuce, tomato and mayo.
• Old can be new.
The executives at Arby's have roast beef nailed.
But after watching the success of premium sandwich chains, Arby's decided to become more like a deli. Since it was introduced in mid-2001, the Market Fresh line of sandwiches accounts for 18 percent of overall sales, says Michael Welch, senior vice president of operations.
Its latest addition: Ultimate BLT.
How to make a boring ol' BLT seem new? Well, Arby's placed it on honey wheat bread and stuffed it with five thick slices of bacon.
It's working. Arby's stores that sell it are seeing an average 6 percent sales bump, says Welch.
• Don't ignore women.
Wendy's has spent decades trying to get its salads right. Its first salad bar concept ultimately got yanked in 1992. And sales of the salads that replaced it were dismal.
But two years ago, with pre-made salad sales booming at the supermarket, Wendy's tried again.
It tested 20 prototypes. It replaced tomato wedges with bite-size tomatoes. It mixed in real bacon bits. It overhauled the dressings. The resulting line of Garden Sensations salads, rolled out last winter, has tripled salad sales, says Lori Estrada, vice president of product R&D. To no one's surprise, women are the line's biggest fans.
• Quality counts.
With chicken nuggets a $3 billion-a-year industry, KFC had to do something. So, back in 1995, a consultant helped KFC concoct its own nuggetlike Popcorn Chicken. But the concept never took off.
Then, last September, KFC reintroduced the product with all white meat — not ground chicken parts — combining quality with convenience.
"Now consumers know they can eat at KFC without spilling chicken bones all over the car," says John Gilbert, chief marketing officer. "And quality has suddenly become our biggest weapon."
• Flavor matters.
Ever since spokesdude Jared started jawing about how swell Subway sandwiches are for losing weight, the company's image has escalated. So have sales. Over 2000-01, same-store sales zoomed 31 percent compared with the previous two years.
But success bred a new problem: How to make the good-for-you stuff taste good to you?
Subway blended two distinct flavors into one sandwich. Its new Sweet Onion Teriyaki Chicken mixes sweet onion sauce with teriyaki glaze for a hit sandwich.
• Go for it.
Then there's the Banana Cream Pie Milkshake.
The what?
Well, Sonic — the folks who created pancake-on-a-stick — blended banana cream pie ingredients with ice cream.
Ka-ching! Restaurant Business named it the beverage of the year last May. This marked the first time a fast-food restaurant won the prestigious award.
How did Sonic celebrate?
By creating the Strawberry Cheesecake Shake, of course.
