Achi news desk-
One of the latest volleys in the multi-billion dollar fast food wars started with a late night on Karen Suri’s TikTok.
A&W’s director of menu development was scrolling through his phone when he came across the “pickle girl” trend that made the rounds last year, with women (and one very loud and adorable three-year-old) showing their love for pickles.
The next morning, he was mixing different pickle-based sauces in the burger chain’s test kitchen in North Vancouver. Five weeks later, he put together a recipe that formed the basis of last summer’s A&W Spicy Dill Burger.
“Our supplier … got it right from the start,” said Suri, who was standing in the test kitchen in mid-March, noting that the five weeks from idea to product was a record for him.
Click to shake it
While much of the industry’s appeal comes from its familiarity, fast food brands also face pressure to shake up their menus in response to growing competition and changing consumer tastes.
Often, this process begins with the launch of a new limited-time offer, which brands hope will generate buzz and, if they’re lucky, spark devotion levels from a sacrificial or pumpkin spice latte.
It’s a high-stakes game for the $42.6 billion fast-food industry.
While fast-food joints have done well amid inflation, the industry’s growth is starting to slow as the number of competitors continues to rise, according to retail analytics firm Circana, and staying relevant is key to staying in the game.
Art versus science
Walking into the A&W test kitchen is like walking into a large version of a fast food kitchen, with about 10 times the equipment. Different restaurants have different grills and fryers, so the space needs an unusual abundance of equipment to make sure recipes work the same no matter where they’re rolled.
On a recent visit, the space was scrupulously clean and without much of an aroma.
It is here that Suri – who previously worked in luxury hotels in India, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates – along with his team, try to figure out what the next thing customers will want to eat. It is a process that is both science and art.
CBC business reporter Paula Duhcheck talks to A&W’s director of menu development Karen Suri to get the inside scoop on how the fast food chain comes up with popular menu items like their Spy Piri-Piri Potato Buddy.
Although Suri got his pickles in five weeks, recipe development can in some cases take years. Nashville’s chicken glaze went through 57 different variations before the team arrived at a version that could be mass-produced and stay shelf-stable inside a hot restaurant kitchen.
“It has to work in these very, very harsh kitchen environments,” said David Ivey, Suri’s test kitchen co-pilot and food scientist.
A&W gets a ton of data from its forecasters and suppliers about what flavors are popular now and which ones are expected to take off in the coming years.
Hacking the menu for a menu item
It is also visible to consumers.
For the first time, this year the company introduced a new menu item based on menu hacking. A franchise owner in Mississauga noticed that customers from the South Asian community were buying hamburgers but substituting beef patties for hash browns.
“I’m from India and there’s a big, big population of vegetarians there,” Suri said. “They don’t eat meat, they don’t eat chicken – but we have hash browns.”
Changing demographics are a key part of why restaurants mix up their menus in the first place.
Many hamburger and fry chains have roots in the mid-twentieth century, but since then Canadian consumers and palates have changed.
“A lot of these new immigrants, they’re your guests now — they come with their own tastes and their own cultures and their own cuisines,” Suri said.
Smaller globally inspired chains compete for dollars
Circa Canada foodservice industry analyst Vince Segablon said traditional burger chains are finding themselves competing against a larger number of fast-food players with globally inspired cuisine — for example, Osmow’s Shawarma, Thai Express and Roti Butter Chicken, he said.
And it’s not just fast food where this change is taking place, according to taste expert Cecilia Ferreira.
From snack foods to beverages to desserts, some of the most popular flavors in North America right now have roots elsewhere in the world.
“Ginger, spicy honey, jerky flavors, miso, tahini, sesame flavors — they’re all getting more and more popular,” said Pereyra, a global product marketer for International Flavors and Fragrances, a US company that develops flavors for everything from multivitamins to applesauce. land. Fries.
The competition is on the rise
For legacy brands, the trick is to combine new flavors with the familiar products they are known for.
Adding a new seasoning or sauce to a main, such as potato chips or a hamburger, is a common way to do this – a concept known in the industry as a “good discovery”.
Cost of living8:18Fast food and “familiar discovery”
Fast food restaurants strive to give us what we like and what we know. But as Canada’s demographics change, so do our tastes. CBC reporter Paula Duhcheck steps into A&W’s test kitchen to learn what it takes to come up with new menu items that give people a taste of something fresh while remaining tried and true.
“‘Familiar discovery’ is the idea that we can give someone something fairly familiar and then just put a layer of innovation on top of it that makes it new and interesting,” said Derek Vela, director of the University of Guelph’s Center for Food Innovation.
“[Customers] You’re more likely to buy it that way, more likely to enjoy it,” he said, pointing to the new frozen yuzu drink at Tim Hortons as another example.
Everything is spicy
Inside A&W’s test kitchen are about half a dozen hot sauces in development. They range from a Szechuan-style chili oil-based sauce to a Moroccan pepper aioli featuring notes of cinnamon and coriander.
“In Canada, hot sauce has just taken off in the last four years, and it’s not your traditional hot sauce hot sauce,” Suri said.
A&W has about 70 products in the works right now, though only a small number will make their way out of the test kitchen and into the test market—and only after extensive testing.
“Many of the decisions we make… [are] Based on data, starting with going into the facilities of our supplier partners and dialing in exactly how everything is manufactured down to the millimeter to the gram,” Ivey said.
He estimates he’s cooked their limited-edition piri-piri burger about 500 times to ensure the cooking instructions are specific enough.
“Everything has to be very consistent and almost exactly the same.”
It’s a time-consuming job, but industry analyst Sgabellone said there’s more going on.
During the pandemic many restaurants closed their test kitchens and improved their menus to simplify and save money.
But as the world opens up, brands are increasingly releasing new menu items, whether they’re completely new recipes or nostalgic re-releases.
“This wave of innovation is washing back into the market now,” he said.
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