The Spicy Chipotle D.T. Double: two fresh, North American beef patties with delicious melted Pepper Jack cheese and sliced jalapeños. All for just $2.99.
Wendys.com
Showing posts with label Wendy's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wendy's. Show all posts
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Fast Food Hamburger of the Month
The Spicy Chipotle D.T. Double: two fresh, North American beef patties with delicious melted Pepper Jack cheese and sliced jalapeños. All for just $2.99.
Wendys.com
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wendy's unveils natural-cut fries made with sea salt
http://www.naturalnews.com/030423_Wendys_french_fries.html
Wendy's unveils natural-cut fries made with sea salt
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) If you ever ask yourself whether all of us in the natural health community are really making a difference, look no further than today's astonishing news: the Wendy's fast food chain has announced new "natural-cut" French fries made with sea salt. What makes them "natural-cut?" They still have potato skins!
In a weird way, this is sort of a step in the right direction, although I'm not sure yet that I trust this new product. Based on the research I've done, the term "sea salt" is technically meaningless, as any salt can be called sea salt since it all came from the sea sometime in Earth's history. That doesn't mean it's full-spectrum salt that's rich in minerals.
"Processed salt" is to full-spectrum salt what processed white sugar is to real sugar cane crystals. I don't yet know whether Wendy's is using legitimate full-spectrum sea salt or just some processed white salt that they're calling "sea salt," so it's hard to tell whether this is a good thing. (Most likely, a Wendy's P.R. person will respond to this article with some sort of answer on this, so we'll see where that goes...)
The natural-cut fries, on the other hand, are definitely a move in the right direction. Potato skins are definitely on the "healthy" side of things, and I'd much rather eat fries with skins on them than fries from potatoes that have been peeled. Then again, I don't eat fast food fries in the first place. Starches cooked at extremely high temperatures form acrylamides (http://naturalnews.com/acrylamides.html).
Are Wendy's customers really interested in healthy food?
These new "natural-cut" fries are part of Wendy's new effort to make food using what they call "real" food ingredients.
Which brings up the obvious question: What have they been using until now, anyway? Non-real ingredients? And what are all the other fast food restaurants using -- artificial ingredients? (You already know the answer to that question...)
"We want every ingredient to be a simple ingredient, to be one you can pronounce and one your grandmother would recognize in her pantry," said Chief Marketing Officer Ken Calwell, in a NYDailyNews.com report.
It's a commendable intention. Let's see how far Wendy's can actually take this idea of "natural" fast food.
About this effort, on one hand I have to give Wendy's kudos for daring to take a step into the world of somewhat real food. But on the other hand, it's still a fried starch, and that's not very good for your health. Then again, I'm not sure that Wendy's customers are actually looking for healthy food options.
When you think "healthy food," you don't normally think about going to a fast food burger restaurant chain. Perhaps Wendy's is planning on changing all that and rolling out organic beef burgers with whole-grain buns and salads with no MSG in the dressing. Will they also stop serving diet soft drinks laced with aspartame? I very much doubt it.
It really all comes down to what customers will buy. If customers will buy poison, fast food restaurants will keep serving up poison. Do not think that any large corporation is going to purposely reduce its own earnings just to improve the health of its customers. That very idea is completely incompatible with the priorities of the corporate world.
At the same time, there probably is room in the fast food industry for at least one nationwide company that serves food made from real ingredients. In Arizona, there's a chain of fast food Mexican restaurants called La Salsa that actually comes pretty close to this. I've been known to eat there myself from time to time. They use fresh ingredients and make their own salsa in-house.
Wendy's unveils natural-cut fries made with sea salt
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) If you ever ask yourself whether all of us in the natural health community are really making a difference, look no further than today's astonishing news: the Wendy's fast food chain has announced new "natural-cut" French fries made with sea salt. What makes them "natural-cut?" They still have potato skins!
In a weird way, this is sort of a step in the right direction, although I'm not sure yet that I trust this new product. Based on the research I've done, the term "sea salt" is technically meaningless, as any salt can be called sea salt since it all came from the sea sometime in Earth's history. That doesn't mean it's full-spectrum salt that's rich in minerals.
"Processed salt" is to full-spectrum salt what processed white sugar is to real sugar cane crystals. I don't yet know whether Wendy's is using legitimate full-spectrum sea salt or just some processed white salt that they're calling "sea salt," so it's hard to tell whether this is a good thing. (Most likely, a Wendy's P.R. person will respond to this article with some sort of answer on this, so we'll see where that goes...)
The natural-cut fries, on the other hand, are definitely a move in the right direction. Potato skins are definitely on the "healthy" side of things, and I'd much rather eat fries with skins on them than fries from potatoes that have been peeled. Then again, I don't eat fast food fries in the first place. Starches cooked at extremely high temperatures form acrylamides (http://naturalnews.com/acrylamides.html).
Are Wendy's customers really interested in healthy food?
These new "natural-cut" fries are part of Wendy's new effort to make food using what they call "real" food ingredients.
Which brings up the obvious question: What have they been using until now, anyway? Non-real ingredients? And what are all the other fast food restaurants using -- artificial ingredients? (You already know the answer to that question...)
"We want every ingredient to be a simple ingredient, to be one you can pronounce and one your grandmother would recognize in her pantry," said Chief Marketing Officer Ken Calwell, in a NYDailyNews.com report.
It's a commendable intention. Let's see how far Wendy's can actually take this idea of "natural" fast food.
About this effort, on one hand I have to give Wendy's kudos for daring to take a step into the world of somewhat real food. But on the other hand, it's still a fried starch, and that's not very good for your health. Then again, I'm not sure that Wendy's customers are actually looking for healthy food options.
When you think "healthy food," you don't normally think about going to a fast food burger restaurant chain. Perhaps Wendy's is planning on changing all that and rolling out organic beef burgers with whole-grain buns and salads with no MSG in the dressing. Will they also stop serving diet soft drinks laced with aspartame? I very much doubt it.
It really all comes down to what customers will buy. If customers will buy poison, fast food restaurants will keep serving up poison. Do not think that any large corporation is going to purposely reduce its own earnings just to improve the health of its customers. That very idea is completely incompatible with the priorities of the corporate world.
At the same time, there probably is room in the fast food industry for at least one nationwide company that serves food made from real ingredients. In Arizona, there's a chain of fast food Mexican restaurants called La Salsa that actually comes pretty close to this. I've been known to eat there myself from time to time. They use fresh ingredients and make their own salsa in-house.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Fast Food Snack of the Month: Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets
Get Your Spice On. Why settle for the typical chicken nuggets at other places? Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets are five pieces of crispy, all-white meat chicken with three different kinds of peppers and savory spices. But the real kick is they're only 99 cents. And only Wendy's has them.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107496/top-5-fast-food-value-menu-deals.html
Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals
by Tara Struyk
Friday, August 14, 2009
Common wisdom suggests that it's cheaper to cook your own meals at home than it is to eat in a restaurant. But as the economy's slump continues, fast-food restaurants have been trumpeting the financial merits of their value menus, many of which offer filling food for a dollar or less.
With these companies' ability to buy food in mass quantities at much greater discounts than what you can get from even a discount grocer, can you really compete? Let's take a look the top five fast food values out there today.
Breaking It Down
To come up with per-serving prices for ingredients in these fast food items, we used their average or estimated retail costs. These will vary depending on where you live and where you shop. The cost of individual condiments was excluded for simplicity's sake.
No. 5 KFC: The "Snacker" Is Just That
KFC launched its 10-item value menu in February, but unlike some of the other chains on this list, only three of its value offerings fall under the $1 mark. The best value of the bunch is probably the Ultimate Cheese KFC Snacker, a 3-ounce breaded chicken strip covered in cheese sauce and lettuce on a dinner-roll sized bun.
At 115 grams, it's a considerable lightweight compared to the other value menu items on this list, which weigh in anywhere from 128 grams (Taco Bell) to 151 grams (McDonald's).
Per-Sandwich Cost at KFC: 99 cents
Per Sandwich Cost at Home:
-Chicken(prepared at home at $3/pound): 56 cents
-Dinner Roll: 15 cents
-Cheese Sauce: 4 cents
-Total: 75 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: You can make this at home for less, but only if you can crack the Colonel's secret recipe.
No. 4 Burger King: Where's the Cheese?
There are more than a dozen value menu items at Burger King. The Whopper Junior, a standard burger with 2.2 ounces of beef, is the most substantial item, but unlike the other burgers on this list it does not include cheese. According to BeefRetail.org, the average price of regular ground beef as of March 2009 was $2.44.
Per-Burger Cost at Burger King: 99 cents (depending on where you live)
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 33 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 58 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: If you make your own version of a Junior Whopper, you can add a slice of cheese and a little extra meat and still get more food for $1.
No. 3 Taco Bell: Why Pay More?
Taco Bell's ‘Why Pay More?’ Value Menu has some of the lowest prices around, with 10 products priced at 79, 89 and 99 cents. This Mexican-inspired food goes for prices that you might see in, well, Mexico. The hot item on this menu is reportedly the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, an eight-ounce giant with about 2.5 ounces of seasoned ground beef, cheese sauce, seasoned rice and red sauce.
Per-Burrito Cost at Taco Bell: 99 cents
Per Burrito Cost at Home:
-Meat: 38 cents
-Tortilla: 25 cents
-Cheese Sauce (prepared, 1/2 ounce): ~15 cents
-Rice (at a price of 4 cents per ounce and assuming two ounces): 8 cents
-Total: 86 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: If you make a similar item at home, you might be cutting it close in terms of coming out ahead of this fast-food item, as tortillas can easily cost as much as 40 cents each, depending on where you shop. If you make your own tortillas, you could make a similar burrito for as little as 60 cents.
No.2 McDonald's: Budgets Are Lovin' It
The iconic Mcdonald's dollar menu has been around since 2002, and although it offers only a handful of items, they seem like a steal. A dollar-menu staple, something you could actually call "lunch", is the McDouble: two hamburger patties, one slice of cheese, condiments and a bun.
Per-Burger Cost at McDonalds: $1
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 49 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 94 cents + condiments and the time it takes to cook it
Bottom Line: Assuming the cost of the condiments adds a few more cents, you can see that the McDouble is a tantalizingly good value.
No.1 Wendy's: It's Value
Wendy's doesn't have a signature sandwich but it does capitalize on its signature square burger patties. But does this chain offer a product that's "wayyyy better than fast food" in terms of value?
In a word: yes. Look at Wendy's Double Stack burger, one of the key items on its sizable Super Value Menu. It is advertised as a 99-cent item and consists of two 1.78 ounce hamburger patties, a cheese slice and condiments.
Per-Burger Cost at Wendy's: 99 cents
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 54 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Total: 99 cents +condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: As it turns out, Wendy's really isn't cutting corners with its signature square burgers. If you can find a Wendy's location that's selling this item for 99 cents (some have bumped the price up to $1.49), you'll be sinking your teeth into the most beef you can get for less than a dollar.
Can I Take Your Order?
So, while in most cases you can't get better deal at the drive-through window than in the grocery aisle, if you stick to value menu items, the savings gleaned by flipping your own burgers are very small, particularly for top fast food restaurants like Wendy's and McDonalds.
It all depends on what you value most. If your top priorities are convenience and price, fast food chains may be the most budget-friendly way to fill your stomach. If you're worried about food quality - or your waistline - these cheap, filling fast food deals may not be your best bet.
Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals
by Tara Struyk
Friday, August 14, 2009
Common wisdom suggests that it's cheaper to cook your own meals at home than it is to eat in a restaurant. But as the economy's slump continues, fast-food restaurants have been trumpeting the financial merits of their value menus, many of which offer filling food for a dollar or less.
With these companies' ability to buy food in mass quantities at much greater discounts than what you can get from even a discount grocer, can you really compete? Let's take a look the top five fast food values out there today.
Breaking It Down
To come up with per-serving prices for ingredients in these fast food items, we used their average or estimated retail costs. These will vary depending on where you live and where you shop. The cost of individual condiments was excluded for simplicity's sake.
No. 5 KFC: The "Snacker" Is Just That
KFC launched its 10-item value menu in February, but unlike some of the other chains on this list, only three of its value offerings fall under the $1 mark. The best value of the bunch is probably the Ultimate Cheese KFC Snacker, a 3-ounce breaded chicken strip covered in cheese sauce and lettuce on a dinner-roll sized bun.
At 115 grams, it's a considerable lightweight compared to the other value menu items on this list, which weigh in anywhere from 128 grams (Taco Bell) to 151 grams (McDonald's).
Per-Sandwich Cost at KFC: 99 cents
Per Sandwich Cost at Home:
-Chicken(prepared at home at $3/pound): 56 cents
-Dinner Roll: 15 cents
-Cheese Sauce: 4 cents
-Total: 75 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: You can make this at home for less, but only if you can crack the Colonel's secret recipe.
No. 4 Burger King: Where's the Cheese?
There are more than a dozen value menu items at Burger King. The Whopper Junior, a standard burger with 2.2 ounces of beef, is the most substantial item, but unlike the other burgers on this list it does not include cheese. According to BeefRetail.org, the average price of regular ground beef as of March 2009 was $2.44.
Per-Burger Cost at Burger King: 99 cents (depending on where you live)
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 33 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 58 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: If you make your own version of a Junior Whopper, you can add a slice of cheese and a little extra meat and still get more food for $1.
No. 3 Taco Bell: Why Pay More?
Taco Bell's ‘Why Pay More?’ Value Menu has some of the lowest prices around, with 10 products priced at 79, 89 and 99 cents. This Mexican-inspired food goes for prices that you might see in, well, Mexico. The hot item on this menu is reportedly the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, an eight-ounce giant with about 2.5 ounces of seasoned ground beef, cheese sauce, seasoned rice and red sauce.
Per-Burrito Cost at Taco Bell: 99 cents
Per Burrito Cost at Home:
-Meat: 38 cents
-Tortilla: 25 cents
-Cheese Sauce (prepared, 1/2 ounce): ~15 cents
-Rice (at a price of 4 cents per ounce and assuming two ounces): 8 cents
-Total: 86 cents + condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: If you make a similar item at home, you might be cutting it close in terms of coming out ahead of this fast-food item, as tortillas can easily cost as much as 40 cents each, depending on where you shop. If you make your own tortillas, you could make a similar burrito for as little as 60 cents.
No.2 McDonald's: Budgets Are Lovin' It
The iconic Mcdonald's dollar menu has been around since 2002, and although it offers only a handful of items, they seem like a steal. A dollar-menu staple, something you could actually call "lunch", is the McDouble: two hamburger patties, one slice of cheese, condiments and a bun.
Per-Burger Cost at McDonalds: $1
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 49 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Total: 94 cents + condiments and the time it takes to cook it
Bottom Line: Assuming the cost of the condiments adds a few more cents, you can see that the McDouble is a tantalizingly good value.
No.1 Wendy's: It's Value
Wendy's doesn't have a signature sandwich but it does capitalize on its signature square burger patties. But does this chain offer a product that's "wayyyy better than fast food" in terms of value?
In a word: yes. Look at Wendy's Double Stack burger, one of the key items on its sizable Super Value Menu. It is advertised as a 99-cent item and consists of two 1.78 ounce hamburger patties, a cheese slice and condiments.
Per-Burger Cost at Wendy's: 99 cents
Per-Burger Cost at Home:
-Meat: 54 cents
-Bun: 25 cents
-Cheese: 20 cents
-Total: 99 cents +condiments and cooking time
Bottom Line: As it turns out, Wendy's really isn't cutting corners with its signature square burgers. If you can find a Wendy's location that's selling this item for 99 cents (some have bumped the price up to $1.49), you'll be sinking your teeth into the most beef you can get for less than a dollar.
Can I Take Your Order?
So, while in most cases you can't get better deal at the drive-through window than in the grocery aisle, if you stick to value menu items, the savings gleaned by flipping your own burgers are very small, particularly for top fast food restaurants like Wendy's and McDonalds.
It all depends on what you value most. If your top priorities are convenience and price, fast food chains may be the most budget-friendly way to fill your stomach. If you're worried about food quality - or your waistline - these cheap, filling fast food deals may not be your best bet.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Arby's owner buying Wendy's for $2.34 billion
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080424/ap_on_bi_ge/wendy_s
Arby's owner buying Wendy's for $2.34 billion stock deal
By MARK WILLIAMS, AP Business Writer
Thu Apr 24, 2008
After two past rejections, the owner of Arby's shaved roast beef sandwich restaurants is buying Wendy's, the fast-food chain famous for its made-to-order square hamburgers and chocolate Frosty dessert, for around $2 billion.
Triarc Companies Inc., which is owned by billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, said Thursday it will pay about $2.34 billion in an all-stock deal for the nation's third-largest hamburger chain started in 1969 by Dave Thomas. Wendy's had rejected at least two buyout offers from Triarc.
Thomas' daughter Pam Thomas Farber said the family was devastated by the news.
"It's a very sad day for Wendy's, and our family. We just didn't think this would be the outcome," said Farber, 53.
If her father were alive to hear news of the buyout, "he would not be amused," she said.
Thomas became a household face when he began pitching his burgers and fries in television commercials in 1989.
Wendy's International Inc. deferred comment to Triarc, which had nothing further to say right away.
Triarc will pay about $26.78 per share for the company, which has about 87 million shares outstanding. The price is a premium of 6 percent from the company's closing price of $25.32 Wednesday.
Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year, shareholders at Wendy's will receive 4.25 shares of Triarc Class A stock for each share of Wendy's stock they own.
Atlanta-based Triarc said its shareholders will have to approve a charter amendment in which each share of its Class B stock will be converted into Class A stock.
The Wendy's board has been studying strategic alternatives since early last year, and expenses related to that contributed to the company's 72 percent drop in first-quarter earning announced Thursday.
Wendy's said its profits totaled $4.1 million, or 5 cents, a share for the quarter ended March 30 compared with a profit of $14.7 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue was down slightly to $513 million from $522 million a year ago.
Wendy's stock is well off its high for the past year of $42.22 that it reached shortly after the committee began its work in the summer. It fell 3 cents to $25.39 in early trading Thursday.
Sales have slid in a struggling economy that has hurt other restaurant chains, too.
The deal caps two chaotic years for Wendy's in which it has sold or spun off operations, slashed its corporate staff and had its wholesome image tarnished by a woman who falsely claimed she found part of a finger in her chili.
Triarc said it will also change its name to include the Wendy's name.
Pushed by activist shareholders, Wendy's spun off its Tim Hortons coffee-and-doughnut chain and sold its money-losing Baja Fresh Mexican Grill. Chairman and CEO Jack Schuessler abruptly retired in March 2006, months after a woman and her husband were sentenced to prison for extortion for their plot in March 2005 to plant part of a human finger in a bowl of chili at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's restaurant and claiming it was served to her.
Farber said the family didn't think much of Peltz' and Triarc's tactics.
"They came after them (Wendy's) and came after them and came after them. They spun Tim Hortons off, they did this, they did that. They did everything they asked but it wasn't enough."
Farber said she had just gotten off the phone with her sister Wendy, 46, the company's namesake.
"She's feeling horrible. She just is devastated," Farber said.
Farber said the family had a supported an alternate bid led by Wendy's franchisee David Karam, president of Cedar Enterprises Inc.
"We knew what Dave Karam's commitment was to Wendy's, his family's commitment — just as ours. His dad was a very good friend of our dad's and was one of the very first franchisees, so there's a lot of history."
Peltz, who runs the Trian Fund, and his allies own 9.8 percent of Wendy's stock. Arby's has more than 3,000 restaurants.
He had argued in a letter to Wendy's chairman James Pickett that Triac would be a natural buyer of Wendy's. Peltz gained three seats on the company's board last year.
Thomas, who died in 2002, opened his first restaurant in a former steakhouse on a cold, snowy Saturday in downtown Columbus on Nov. 15, 1969. He named the chain after his 8-year-old daughter Melinda Lou — nicknamed Wendy by her siblings.
The smiling Thomas, always wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and red tie, touted the virtues of fast food in humorous ads, often featuring big-name stars such as bluesman B.B. King and soap opera queen Susan Lucci. He appeared in more than 800 ads.
Wendy's, based in suburban Dublin, operates about 6,600 restaurants in the United States and abroad. It trails McDonald's and Burger King Holdings Inc. in the burger business.
___
On the Net: http://www.wendys.com
___
Associated Press writer Doug Whiteman contributed to this story.
Arby's owner buying Wendy's for $2.34 billion stock deal
By MARK WILLIAMS, AP Business Writer
Thu Apr 24, 2008
After two past rejections, the owner of Arby's shaved roast beef sandwich restaurants is buying Wendy's, the fast-food chain famous for its made-to-order square hamburgers and chocolate Frosty dessert, for around $2 billion.
Triarc Companies Inc., which is owned by billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, said Thursday it will pay about $2.34 billion in an all-stock deal for the nation's third-largest hamburger chain started in 1969 by Dave Thomas. Wendy's had rejected at least two buyout offers from Triarc.
Thomas' daughter Pam Thomas Farber said the family was devastated by the news.
"It's a very sad day for Wendy's, and our family. We just didn't think this would be the outcome," said Farber, 53.
If her father were alive to hear news of the buyout, "he would not be amused," she said.
Thomas became a household face when he began pitching his burgers and fries in television commercials in 1989.
Wendy's International Inc. deferred comment to Triarc, which had nothing further to say right away.
Triarc will pay about $26.78 per share for the company, which has about 87 million shares outstanding. The price is a premium of 6 percent from the company's closing price of $25.32 Wednesday.
Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year, shareholders at Wendy's will receive 4.25 shares of Triarc Class A stock for each share of Wendy's stock they own.
Atlanta-based Triarc said its shareholders will have to approve a charter amendment in which each share of its Class B stock will be converted into Class A stock.
The Wendy's board has been studying strategic alternatives since early last year, and expenses related to that contributed to the company's 72 percent drop in first-quarter earning announced Thursday.
Wendy's said its profits totaled $4.1 million, or 5 cents, a share for the quarter ended March 30 compared with a profit of $14.7 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue was down slightly to $513 million from $522 million a year ago.
Wendy's stock is well off its high for the past year of $42.22 that it reached shortly after the committee began its work in the summer. It fell 3 cents to $25.39 in early trading Thursday.
Sales have slid in a struggling economy that has hurt other restaurant chains, too.
The deal caps two chaotic years for Wendy's in which it has sold or spun off operations, slashed its corporate staff and had its wholesome image tarnished by a woman who falsely claimed she found part of a finger in her chili.
Triarc said it will also change its name to include the Wendy's name.
Pushed by activist shareholders, Wendy's spun off its Tim Hortons coffee-and-doughnut chain and sold its money-losing Baja Fresh Mexican Grill. Chairman and CEO Jack Schuessler abruptly retired in March 2006, months after a woman and her husband were sentenced to prison for extortion for their plot in March 2005 to plant part of a human finger in a bowl of chili at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's restaurant and claiming it was served to her.
Farber said the family didn't think much of Peltz' and Triarc's tactics.
"They came after them (Wendy's) and came after them and came after them. They spun Tim Hortons off, they did this, they did that. They did everything they asked but it wasn't enough."
Farber said she had just gotten off the phone with her sister Wendy, 46, the company's namesake.
"She's feeling horrible. She just is devastated," Farber said.
Farber said the family had a supported an alternate bid led by Wendy's franchisee David Karam, president of Cedar Enterprises Inc.
"We knew what Dave Karam's commitment was to Wendy's, his family's commitment — just as ours. His dad was a very good friend of our dad's and was one of the very first franchisees, so there's a lot of history."
Peltz, who runs the Trian Fund, and his allies own 9.8 percent of Wendy's stock. Arby's has more than 3,000 restaurants.
He had argued in a letter to Wendy's chairman James Pickett that Triac would be a natural buyer of Wendy's. Peltz gained three seats on the company's board last year.
Thomas, who died in 2002, opened his first restaurant in a former steakhouse on a cold, snowy Saturday in downtown Columbus on Nov. 15, 1969. He named the chain after his 8-year-old daughter Melinda Lou — nicknamed Wendy by her siblings.
The smiling Thomas, always wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and red tie, touted the virtues of fast food in humorous ads, often featuring big-name stars such as bluesman B.B. King and soap opera queen Susan Lucci. He appeared in more than 800 ads.
Wendy's, based in suburban Dublin, operates about 6,600 restaurants in the United States and abroad. It trails McDonald's and Burger King Holdings Inc. in the burger business.
___
On the Net: http://www.wendys.com
___
Associated Press writer Doug Whiteman contributed to this story.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Face-to-Face With the Monster Thickburger
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/01/13/Monster-Thickburger-Review
Face-to-Face With the Monster Thickburger
by Tucker Shaw
February 2008 Issue
Intrepid food critic Tucker Shaw tackles the biggest fast-food burgers.
As a professional critic, it’s my job to be a food snob—but an equal-opportunity one.
Which is why I found myself sitting at a table in a cheery, jam-packed Hardee's outpost in Casper, Wyoming, staring down not one but two S.U.V.-size sandwiches: a Monster Thickburger (two one-third-pound patties with bacon, American cheese, and mayonnaise on a buttered bun) and a Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger (as above, minus one patty plus grilled steak, onions, peppers, and swiss cheese).
Each was bigger than your head.
The Monster Thickburger was a thrill to behold—glistening, greasy, and plump with promise. However, at first grapple, it exceeded the range attainable by my average-size, if well-exercised, jaw. Daunted but undeterred, I squeezed the patties together and tilted my head about 15 degrees to the left, hoping a diagonal entry might be smoother.
Success was not mine, for as the irresistible force (M.T.) met the immovable object (my face), my grip failed. In one seamless, slo-mo movement, patty slipped across patty, mayo oozed, bacon flopped floorward, bun split, and the entire construction crumbled.
What I salvaged was divine—in the most disgusting way. Well-seasoned beef, appropriately gooey cheese, remarkably crispy bacon, fresh roll. Too big by half for mortal stomachs but perfect for extreme eaters. Less fulfilling, alas, was the Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger, a gilded lily that piles cheesesteak fixings—undercooked onions and shaved beef that gets stuck between your teeth—atop the burger mountain.
Carl's Jr.'s gargantuan Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger encompasses two massive patties, bacon, cheese, and onion rings. But where the M.T. seemed vital, the D.W.B.C. sagged under its own weight, more meat loaf than burger, "crispy" onion rings soggy and flaccid.
Wendy’s new go-big offering, the seductively named Baconator, slaps six strips of bacon, two patties, and two American-cheese slices onto a bun. Wendy's beef is coarsely ground, and its gimmicky square patties meaty but crumbly and sometimes underseasoned. The bacon was limp and the cheese unmelted—two deal-breakers.
Burger King recently introduced the BK Stacker, in double, triple, and quadruple sizes. But even the four-story Stacker is disappointingly compact and too greasy. Still tops on the menu, sizewise, is the Triple Whopper With Cheese. The flame-broiled patties are crispy on the edges, soft and meaty in the middle, and draped in a velvety swath of mayo. McDonald's wimpy-by-comparison menu offers the Big N' Tasty, which is neither all that big nor all that tasty.
Cardiac surgeons, expect a busy century. The era of the über-burger is upon us.
Face-to-Face With the Monster Thickburger
by Tucker Shaw
February 2008 Issue
Intrepid food critic Tucker Shaw tackles the biggest fast-food burgers.
As a professional critic, it’s my job to be a food snob—but an equal-opportunity one.
Which is why I found myself sitting at a table in a cheery, jam-packed Hardee's outpost in Casper, Wyoming, staring down not one but two S.U.V.-size sandwiches: a Monster Thickburger (two one-third-pound patties with bacon, American cheese, and mayonnaise on a buttered bun) and a Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger (as above, minus one patty plus grilled steak, onions, peppers, and swiss cheese).
Each was bigger than your head.
The Monster Thickburger was a thrill to behold—glistening, greasy, and plump with promise. However, at first grapple, it exceeded the range attainable by my average-size, if well-exercised, jaw. Daunted but undeterred, I squeezed the patties together and tilted my head about 15 degrees to the left, hoping a diagonal entry might be smoother.
Success was not mine, for as the irresistible force (M.T.) met the immovable object (my face), my grip failed. In one seamless, slo-mo movement, patty slipped across patty, mayo oozed, bacon flopped floorward, bun split, and the entire construction crumbled.
What I salvaged was divine—in the most disgusting way. Well-seasoned beef, appropriately gooey cheese, remarkably crispy bacon, fresh roll. Too big by half for mortal stomachs but perfect for extreme eaters. Less fulfilling, alas, was the Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger, a gilded lily that piles cheesesteak fixings—undercooked onions and shaved beef that gets stuck between your teeth—atop the burger mountain.
Carl's Jr.'s gargantuan Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger encompasses two massive patties, bacon, cheese, and onion rings. But where the M.T. seemed vital, the D.W.B.C. sagged under its own weight, more meat loaf than burger, "crispy" onion rings soggy and flaccid.
Wendy’s new go-big offering, the seductively named Baconator, slaps six strips of bacon, two patties, and two American-cheese slices onto a bun. Wendy's beef is coarsely ground, and its gimmicky square patties meaty but crumbly and sometimes underseasoned. The bacon was limp and the cheese unmelted—two deal-breakers.
Burger King recently introduced the BK Stacker, in double, triple, and quadruple sizes. But even the four-story Stacker is disappointingly compact and too greasy. Still tops on the menu, sizewise, is the Triple Whopper With Cheese. The flame-broiled patties are crispy on the edges, soft and meaty in the middle, and draped in a velvety swath of mayo. McDonald's wimpy-by-comparison menu offers the Big N' Tasty, which is neither all that big nor all that tasty.
Cardiac surgeons, expect a busy century. The era of the über-burger is upon us.
Fat Profits
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/01/13/CKE-Hardees-Profile/
Fat Profits
by Joe Keohane
February 2008 Issue
You want onion rings with that? They're already in the burger—along with bacon, cheese, BBQ sauce, and a corporate philosophy that says to hell with the health police. How a fast-food chain is pushing gluttony to new extremes and changing America's attitude toward eating.
It was a patriotic statement that went a bit too far afield: an attempt to create the "ultimate picnic burger." Called the Fourth of July Burger, it was tested last summer at seven locations by the West Coast fast-food chain Carl's Jr. and consisted of a huge beef patty topped with pickles, ketchup, mustard, potato chips, and a hot dog. Stacked high and loaded with fat and calories, it was the food equivalent of the national anthem played through a sousaphone, a perfect distillation of a peculiarly American form of balls-out, postmodern gluttony that, at least outwardly, we're all supposed to be ashamed of right now.
Yet for all its pomp and glory, it didn't quite work. When John Koncki, director of product development for Carl's Jr., talks about it now, he comes across a little wistful. It tasted really good, he says, but the name and the concept proved too much for the testers. "Sometimes," the earnest Koncki says, "some of the sandwiches are so unique that consumers can't wrap their heads around them."
The uniqueness isn't the only thing that's hard to get your head around. During the past few years, CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, has employed an audacious go-for-bloat approach that defies just about everything you've come to assume about the business of modern fast food. (See nutrition data for CKE franchises and other fast-food chains.) In an age when other chains have been forced to at least pretend that they care about the health of their customers and have started offering packets of apples and things sprinkled with walnuts and yogurt, Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are purposely running in the opposite direction, unapologetically creating an arsenal of higher-priced, high-fat, high-calorie monstrosities—pioneering avant-garde concepts such as "meat as a condiment" and "fast-food porn"—and putting the message out to increasingly receptive consumers with ads that are often as controversial as the burgers themselves.
That message may be revolutionary or totally evil or maybe both, but in any case, it goes like this: Anyone can make Americans fat (hell, everyone already has), but only one fast-food company can make them fat and allow them to feel good about it, even get them to feel like they're making a statement and striking a blow against the forces of political correctness. It's downright Jeffersonian in its own weird way, and judging by the growth of both chains, it's working extraordinarily well. Since 2000, CKE's average sales per store have increased by 31 percent, a rate greater than any other burger chain's, save for the nostalgia-mongering Sonic drive-ins, with which CKE is tied. And its stock soared, from about $2 in 2001 to more than $22 last June, before slipping back to around $15 at the end of the year.
Even more interesting is the growing influence of CKE—a regional company that, with more than 3,000 locations, operates the country's 11th- and 12th-largest fast-food chains—on the way fast food is perceived and marketed in America. With its sheer audacity, its philosophy that no one ever went broke overestimating the American appetite, CKE functions as a sort of id for the larger chains, a direct line into the lizard brain of the male fast-food eater. It has envisioned a future even more gluttonous than the present, it has made money, and now others are taking notice.
After a period of collective indigestion induced by the 2004 documentary Super Size Me and the 2001 book Fast Food Nation and its subsequent film adaptation, much of the industry is returning to its traditional customers—men—and its traditional food—meat—served up in ever-greater quantities. Although CKE's signature behemoths—the Carl's Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger and Hardee's Monster Thickburger, both introduced in 2004—out-calorie all comers, Burger King narrowed the gap with its Triple Whopper With Cheese (2005); Wendy's unveiled the Baconator (2007), which we'll get to shortly; and Taco Bell awakened the industry to new possibilities with its 2006 campaign, which urged customers to enjoy a "fourth meal" each day.
The greasy gridiron is becoming well trod, but the first footprints were CKE's. Conrad Lyon, a restaurant-industry analyst for FTN Midwest Securities, says Hardee's and Carl's Jr. "were the ones that really just threw it in your face, so to speak, and did so in a somewhat egregious way."
Andrew Puzder, 57, chief executive of CKE, sits behind an imposing desk in his office at company headquarters in Carpinteria, California (which, for what it's worth, has a gym and no cafeteria), wearing jeans and an untucked Abercrombie & Fitch button-down. Although he spends a lot of time visiting restaurants, eating at a Carl's Jr. or a Hardee's four or five times a week and opting most consistently for his favorite, the Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger, he's fit and sinewy, an avid weight lifter and runner—living proof, he says, that customers don't have to be overweight if they exercise and balance their diets. "I think you need the variety of things," he says. "I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables too." Asked whether he thinks it's ironic that a fitness buff runs a company famous for health-destroying burgers, he says, "I think it's an irony that I'm running CKE, even if I didn't exercise. I was a trial lawyer. I think they all thought they were bringing me in to take the company into bankruptcy."
Puzder was working for a law firm in St. Louis when he met CKE founder Carl Karcher and wound up representing the fast-food magnate in a securities-fraud case. The two men became close; Karcher hired Puzder to handle his personal trust and then, in 1997, to serve as CKE's corporate counsel. That same year, CKE acquired the grimy, moribund Hardee's Food Systems. In June 2000, Puzder was appointed Hardee's president and chief executive, and he became CKE's president and C.E.O. soon afterward. Once he took the helm, he began visiting Hardee's restaurants and was appalled at what he found. The places were filthy, the service was terrible, and the cut-rate food wasn't any good. Puzder instituted policies to take care of the first two problems and then started in on the menu. Working with the ad agency Mendelsohn Zien, a Los Angeles-based firm known for its provocative spots and affinity for companies on life support, Puzder scrapped the old menu, which offered everything from cheap burgers to fried chicken to hot dogs, and devised a new one that focused on bigger burgers for "young, hungry guys" (a phrase chanted like a mantra at headquarters) who were sick of being told what they should and should not eat.
Under Puzder, in 2001, the similarly struggling Carl's Jr. introduced the Six Dollar Burger, a half-pound, premium offering intended to rival the fare of "sit-down" restaurants like T.G.I. Friday's. It was meant to taste like a $6 burger: The retail price was $3.95, expensive for a fast-food chain, but Puzder believes that fast-food customers are more discerning than people think they are and want higher-quality ingredients—such as beef from an Angus cow—than those found in ordinary patties.
The Six Dollar Burger did well with customers and in 2002 won the Silver Skillet Award from Restaurant Business magazine. Puzder saw the future. "I think a lot of this everybody's-gonna-eat-healthy thing is more a concern of people in the media than a concern of people who come into our restaurants," he says. Fast-food customers had indeed been clamoring for healthy alternatives, which prompted an industrywide stampede toward salads and orange slices, but just because customers wanted them on the menu didn't necessarily mean they wanted to eat them. For all the buzz created by snack wraps and yogurt parfaits, burgers and fries remain the two most frequently ordered items in American restaurants, according to industry research group NPD Foodworld. In fact, the addition of salads at McDonald's and other chains is partly aimed at drawing more burger-eating men by placating wives and girlfriends who would otherwise veto the restaurant choice. "What people say they want and what they do don't match up," says Darren Tristano, an executive vice president at Technomic, a food-industry research and consulting firm. "If they say, 'I'm gonna order more salads,' they're going to order more french fries." CKE marketing head Brad Haley, who looks a bit like a golfer with his short-sleeve shirt, goatee, and nascent paunch, echoes the sentiment. "People say what makes them feel better about themselves in surveys."
So Hardee's dispensed with any semblance of social conscience and in 2003 introduced the Thickburger. In 2004, this begat the downright lurid Monster Thickburger, a messy two-thirds of a pound of charbroiled Angus beef containing more than 1,400 calories and 107 grams of fat. Soon afterward, when McDonald's, under fire in the wake of Super Size Me, responded to critics by phasing out its supersize menu, Thickburgers were there to help fill the void. Sales soared, nutritionists cried foul, and a string of burgers of escalating perversity followed from both Hardee's and Carl's Jr.: the Breakfast Burger (a huge patty crowned with a fried egg, bacon, and hash browns), the Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger (topped with sliced steak and cheese), and the Pastrami Burger (take a guess).
When the latter two prompted a horrified Jay Leno to denounce CKE for using meat as "a condiment for other meats," CKE was delighted and started touting "meat as a condiment" in its promotional materials. "When we do a big, decadent burger," says Haley, a man whose office fridge is full of nothing but springwater and Diet Coke, "we'll send the press release to Jay Leno, and we're not afraid if he says, 'This disgusting thing is 5,000 calories.'?"
Leno's disgust has become a reliable boost to CKE's sales. Every time the company introduces a new item, he attacks it, but not before running down its entire list of ingredients in detail, as he did in late 2007 when Hardee's unveiled its contribution to the rapidly growing breakfast market, the Country Breakfast Burrito. Consisting of two eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, cheese, and sausage gravy in a flour tortilla, it has 60 grams of fat and more than 900 calories—the biggest in the land, a belt notch ahead of the Carl's Jr. Breakfast Burger, which comes in at 830 calories. When Haley was quoted as saying that the burrito finally makes a big country breakfast portable, Leno, in one of two separate bits he did on the breakfast beast, quipped, "See, this way you can take it with you in the ambulance after your heart stops." Says Puzder: "A lot of people think Leno's on the payroll."
Some other major fast-food chains have been heading down the same path as Hardee's. Six weeks after Hardee's Country Breakfast Burrito appeared, McDonald's countered with the 610-calorie McSkillet Burrito, featuring egg, sausage, potatoes, and American and Monterey Jack cheeses. In the past four years, Burger King and McDonald's have introduced Angus burgers, and Burger King went for sheer excess with its colossal Meatnormous omelet and BK Stackers (multiple patties in one bun). Burger King began offering stackers in 2006 because "we went out and talked to superfans, and they told us a menu gap we had was a really indulgent meat-and-cheese burger," says John Schaufelberger, head of global product innovation. Since then, Burger King's share price has nearly doubled. A spokeswoman for McDonald's said it is testing the Angus burger in response to customer wishes. McDonald's has otherwise lagged in the big-burger arms race but has dramatically boosted its share price in the past five years via a multipronged approach involving everything from premium coffee and better service to an expanded menu and the ubiquitous I'm Lovin' It marketing campaign.
Last summer, Wendy's introduced the Baconator—two hamburger patties, two slices of American cheese, and no fewer than six strips of bacon. Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch says research shows that customers had an unslakable yearning for more bacon. "Well, if they like two strips of bacon, would they like three? And if they like three, how about six? And that's where the Baconator came from," he says, adding, "there is a trend toward large, indulgent hamburgers." Wendy's (which now also serves stacker-style burgers) reinforced that trend in November, when it announced it would be creating a Philly Style Hoagie Burger—two patties covered with salami, ham, and creamy Italian dressing. And both Burger King and Wendy's have run quirky, somewhat absurdist ads tailored specifically for the young, hungry, male sensibility, though their spots aren't nearly as provocative as CKE's. In 2006, for instance, Burger King launched its I Am Man campaign, in which fed-up men who marched down the street decrying "chick food" opted for Burger King's Texas Double Whopper.
Newton, Mississippi, is a place of churches, farmland, and small, low-slung, porch-heavy houses. But the highway on the outskirts of town is strewn with the sorts of chain restaurants that have contributed to Mississippi's standing as the fattest state in the nation. A whopping 30.6 percent of its residents are obese, according to the nonprofit group Trust for America's Health.
Vying for the attention of passersby are a McDonald's, a Sonic, a K.F.C., a Taco Bell, and, in the shadow of a Wal-Mart Supercenter poised atop a grassy incline, a Hardee's.
This is prime Hardee's country. According to CKE's internal market numbers, two-thirds of Hardee's locations are in small towns, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. Blue-collar white males are well represented in Hardee's customer base, and one-third of all its customers fall within the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic. More than 70 percent of Thickburgers are bought by men. Carl's Jr.'s patrons also skew male, though they're more moneyed; 29 percent make more than $75,000 a year.
"We have a lot of young, hungry guys, a lot of construction workers," says Bill Boddie, who owns the most Hardee's franchises—343 restaurants in North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia. "And they burn up calories. They want something big, and they want something good to eat. They're the ones who buy the huge burgers and the huge breakfast burritos."
At around 1 p.m. on a Sunday, the Newton Hardee's is starting to fill up. It's a beige-and-red box, incongruously colorful against its mostly gray setting, giving it the air of forced gaiety and desolation one tends to find in fast-food restaurants located by highway interchanges. A good number of patrons come in wearing their church clothes. The clean interior is adorned with comment cards and vintage photos of Hardee's restaurants before they went to seed in the '90s. Like Carl's Jr., Hardee's offers limited table service, so after ordering, you take a seat and one of the employees working the counter brings your meal to you. Tony Adams, a big, bearded 45-year-old wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a blue-and-white trucker hat, has been working as a cattle-and-crop researcher for the state for 26 years. His current title is dairy herdsman. Today, he sits in the middle of the dining room with his diminutive, white-haired mother, Arlie Mae Adams, who is clad in a robin's-egg-blue outfit and gold flats. They're regulars: Tony says he eats at Hardee's four times a month, sometimes breakfast, sometimes lunch or dinner. He's quietly, methodically working on a Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger, a large fries, and a tankard of soda. It takes him a solid 15 minutes to get through it all. Arlie Mae is eating a comparatively dainty Big Chicken Fillet Sandwich (770 calories) and fries and drinking a "small" Coke, which is about the size of her thigh. A quote printed on her cup, which reads "Hardee's knows what America wants," is attributed to the Marshall Independent, a Minnesota newspaper.
His lunch effectively vanquished, Tony packs up his wrappers, ambles across the dining room, and dumps them in the trash, then plunks himself back down at the table. "It was good," he says, leaning back in his chair. Asked whether he buys into the notion that a fast-food chain shouldn't sell such hefty fare, he rolls his eyes and snorts. "I wouldn't agree with that," he says. "I don't got no complaints."
"To me," chimes in Arlie Mae, "Hardee's is the best fast food in town."
There's a certain kind of genius at work here, evidence of a well-thought-out defensive game. By not merely disclosing the fat and calorie content of its products but actively boasting about it, CKE effectively declaws the so-called food police, who act on the assumption that people eat fast food only because they don't know it's bad for them. This frankness makes CKE less vulnerable to the sort of social, political, and even legal pressure that its rivals—particularly McDonald's, which offers pedometers with its Go Active Adult Happy Meal—feel so acutely. Far from shameful, it's a point of manly pride to go to Hardee's for lunch and scarf down a Monster Thickburger, a chocolate shake (made with real ice cream, it has three times the fat of the McDonald's version), and a medium fries, which adds up to 170 grams of fat and 2,760 calories. And the more society's nannies say you shouldn't, the more you kind of want to.
The same subversive approach is applied to the company's advertising. In general, CKE doesn't market directly to children. It did recently sign a promotional deal with the producers of the animated film Igor—which stars, coincidentally, Jay Leno. But Puzder says the agreement involves only in-restaurant publicity (small posters as well as toys or action figures given away with meals), not TV or radio, which spares the company trouble with its detractors.
Instead, CKE continues to target the aforementioned "young, hungry guys," along with the people who, for whatever reason, aspire to be like them. This gives the firm a fair amount of leeway. Its most famous ad starred a soaked, soapy, scantily clad Paris Hilton washing a car while eating the mammoth Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger. The spot created a big stir, which culminated in Bill O'Reilly's expressing his outrage in two separate segments (during which the ad ran continuously), telling Puzder, "Families looking at this…a lot of them are going to go, 'Well, we hate you. We hate you.'?" Puzder says, "They complained about the sex in the ad, and I said there wasn't even a guy in it. It was a beautiful woman in a bathing suit eating a burger and washing a car. What could be more American?"
Other ads have included a gorgeous woman riding a mechanical bull while eating a Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger, an attractive woman inserting her entire fist into her mouth to demonstrate the oral capacity one would need to down a Monster Thickburger in a single go, and a Playmate-flanked Hugh Hefner holding one of several varieties of the Six Dollar Burger, with the tagline, "Because guys don't like the same thing night after night." The Hefner spot drew fire from televangelist Robert Schuller, who was quoted in news reports as saying that devout Christian Carl Karcher was "just heartbroken" by the wanton carnal innuendo on display. Puzder says Karcher, who maintained an office at CKE's offices in Anaheim until his death January 11 at the age of 90, "hated the ads for 12 years" but understood their necessity. Puzder, a Catholic, says, "I'm probably more a member of the religious right than I am anything else, so these are my people I'm offending. That's kind of a weird thing, but I can't run the business to the aesthetic tastes of any particular group in the country. And I will tell you, when we run these ads, sales go up and they don't come down."
While the stocks of other fast-food chains had mixed results in the second half of 2007, CKE's share price tumbled. Puzder says an unfounded report in June that CKE was a buyout target artificially drove up the stock price, which was then buffeted by rising food and fuel costs. He says the company, which owns 30 percent of its restaurants and franchises the rest, is more vulnerable to cost increases than Burger King or McDonald's, which have a much higher proportion of franchised outlets, where local owners bear the risk. CKE has sold about 136 of its Hardee's to franchisees in the past year, Puzder adds, "so we've reduced our exposure" as well as raised money to build and remodel more restaurants. It also sold off the underperforming La Salsa chain to focus on Green Burrito and Red Burrito, which are often located within Carl's Jr. and Hardee's locations, respectively. CKE is looking to expand Carl's Jr. to Canada and push Hardee's deeper into its U.S. markets, focusing especially on Texas and the Atlanta area. "We have a lot of room to grow," Puzder says.
Amid all the bluster, CKE has made a couple of concessions. Carl's Jr. offers a charbroiled-chicken salad that has just seven grams of fat, and Hardee's serves a barbecued-chicken sandwich. "It's a very healthy sandwich. I think we sell about two a day," Pudzer quips. Both chains offer token salads, just lettuce and tomato, that don't sell either. Recently CKE pulled the Double Six Dollar Burger from the Carl's Jr. menu in California and plans to do the same nationwide, due to a lawsuit alleging that the two mammoth patties contain an unacceptable amount, according to California law, of a carcinogen commonly created by grilling meats. This means a burger so big it may actually have been illegal. It's still available to customers upon request, which is tantamount to the public's giving informed consent under the law. And on the ad side, a recent spot for the Carl's Jr. patty-melt sandwich—featuring a young, blond teacher with no backside to speak of gyrating on her desk while her students rap about how they like "flat buns"—drew such heated protest from teachers that Puzder withdrew it. "I can defend the sex," he says, "but I can't fight teachers."
All that being said, he plans to stay the course. CKE's bare-bones product-development team of 16 people tests new Carl's Jr. items at corporate headquarters on a sampling of its own employees. One of the female testers, public relations manager Beth Mansfield, appears dazed after enduring one such session. It was "three solid hours of eating," she says. If a quorum can't be assembled, CKE calls in some employees from the office next door, which houses an alternative-energy firm by the name of Clipper Windpower.
Late last year, Carl's Jr. all but parodied the smoothie craze with its Strawberry Banana Smoothie (made with ice cream, it has nearly 700 calories). The development team is currently working on a Cap'n Crunch shake, featuring vanilla ice cream and crushed Cap'n Crunch cereal. The next sandwich is going to be a spicy jalapeño burger for Hardee's, with sliced jalapeños and a liberal slathering of its zesty Southwest sauce.
Beyond that, CKE is tight-lipped. But whatever it is that CKE ends up unleashing on the world, it's safe to say it will be huge, fattening, delicious, and marketed, however unwittingly, by Jay Leno, Bill O'Reilly, and entire battalions of the gastronomically correct.
Fat Profits
by Joe Keohane
February 2008 Issue
You want onion rings with that? They're already in the burger—along with bacon, cheese, BBQ sauce, and a corporate philosophy that says to hell with the health police. How a fast-food chain is pushing gluttony to new extremes and changing America's attitude toward eating.
It was a patriotic statement that went a bit too far afield: an attempt to create the "ultimate picnic burger." Called the Fourth of July Burger, it was tested last summer at seven locations by the West Coast fast-food chain Carl's Jr. and consisted of a huge beef patty topped with pickles, ketchup, mustard, potato chips, and a hot dog. Stacked high and loaded with fat and calories, it was the food equivalent of the national anthem played through a sousaphone, a perfect distillation of a peculiarly American form of balls-out, postmodern gluttony that, at least outwardly, we're all supposed to be ashamed of right now.
Yet for all its pomp and glory, it didn't quite work. When John Koncki, director of product development for Carl's Jr., talks about it now, he comes across a little wistful. It tasted really good, he says, but the name and the concept proved too much for the testers. "Sometimes," the earnest Koncki says, "some of the sandwiches are so unique that consumers can't wrap their heads around them."
The uniqueness isn't the only thing that's hard to get your head around. During the past few years, CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, has employed an audacious go-for-bloat approach that defies just about everything you've come to assume about the business of modern fast food. (See nutrition data for CKE franchises and other fast-food chains.) In an age when other chains have been forced to at least pretend that they care about the health of their customers and have started offering packets of apples and things sprinkled with walnuts and yogurt, Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are purposely running in the opposite direction, unapologetically creating an arsenal of higher-priced, high-fat, high-calorie monstrosities—pioneering avant-garde concepts such as "meat as a condiment" and "fast-food porn"—and putting the message out to increasingly receptive consumers with ads that are often as controversial as the burgers themselves.
That message may be revolutionary or totally evil or maybe both, but in any case, it goes like this: Anyone can make Americans fat (hell, everyone already has), but only one fast-food company can make them fat and allow them to feel good about it, even get them to feel like they're making a statement and striking a blow against the forces of political correctness. It's downright Jeffersonian in its own weird way, and judging by the growth of both chains, it's working extraordinarily well. Since 2000, CKE's average sales per store have increased by 31 percent, a rate greater than any other burger chain's, save for the nostalgia-mongering Sonic drive-ins, with which CKE is tied. And its stock soared, from about $2 in 2001 to more than $22 last June, before slipping back to around $15 at the end of the year.
Even more interesting is the growing influence of CKE—a regional company that, with more than 3,000 locations, operates the country's 11th- and 12th-largest fast-food chains—on the way fast food is perceived and marketed in America. With its sheer audacity, its philosophy that no one ever went broke overestimating the American appetite, CKE functions as a sort of id for the larger chains, a direct line into the lizard brain of the male fast-food eater. It has envisioned a future even more gluttonous than the present, it has made money, and now others are taking notice.
After a period of collective indigestion induced by the 2004 documentary Super Size Me and the 2001 book Fast Food Nation and its subsequent film adaptation, much of the industry is returning to its traditional customers—men—and its traditional food—meat—served up in ever-greater quantities. Although CKE's signature behemoths—the Carl's Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger and Hardee's Monster Thickburger, both introduced in 2004—out-calorie all comers, Burger King narrowed the gap with its Triple Whopper With Cheese (2005); Wendy's unveiled the Baconator (2007), which we'll get to shortly; and Taco Bell awakened the industry to new possibilities with its 2006 campaign, which urged customers to enjoy a "fourth meal" each day.
The greasy gridiron is becoming well trod, but the first footprints were CKE's. Conrad Lyon, a restaurant-industry analyst for FTN Midwest Securities, says Hardee's and Carl's Jr. "were the ones that really just threw it in your face, so to speak, and did so in a somewhat egregious way."
Andrew Puzder, 57, chief executive of CKE, sits behind an imposing desk in his office at company headquarters in Carpinteria, California (which, for what it's worth, has a gym and no cafeteria), wearing jeans and an untucked Abercrombie & Fitch button-down. Although he spends a lot of time visiting restaurants, eating at a Carl's Jr. or a Hardee's four or five times a week and opting most consistently for his favorite, the Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger, he's fit and sinewy, an avid weight lifter and runner—living proof, he says, that customers don't have to be overweight if they exercise and balance their diets. "I think you need the variety of things," he says. "I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables too." Asked whether he thinks it's ironic that a fitness buff runs a company famous for health-destroying burgers, he says, "I think it's an irony that I'm running CKE, even if I didn't exercise. I was a trial lawyer. I think they all thought they were bringing me in to take the company into bankruptcy."
Puzder was working for a law firm in St. Louis when he met CKE founder Carl Karcher and wound up representing the fast-food magnate in a securities-fraud case. The two men became close; Karcher hired Puzder to handle his personal trust and then, in 1997, to serve as CKE's corporate counsel. That same year, CKE acquired the grimy, moribund Hardee's Food Systems. In June 2000, Puzder was appointed Hardee's president and chief executive, and he became CKE's president and C.E.O. soon afterward. Once he took the helm, he began visiting Hardee's restaurants and was appalled at what he found. The places were filthy, the service was terrible, and the cut-rate food wasn't any good. Puzder instituted policies to take care of the first two problems and then started in on the menu. Working with the ad agency Mendelsohn Zien, a Los Angeles-based firm known for its provocative spots and affinity for companies on life support, Puzder scrapped the old menu, which offered everything from cheap burgers to fried chicken to hot dogs, and devised a new one that focused on bigger burgers for "young, hungry guys" (a phrase chanted like a mantra at headquarters) who were sick of being told what they should and should not eat.
Under Puzder, in 2001, the similarly struggling Carl's Jr. introduced the Six Dollar Burger, a half-pound, premium offering intended to rival the fare of "sit-down" restaurants like T.G.I. Friday's. It was meant to taste like a $6 burger: The retail price was $3.95, expensive for a fast-food chain, but Puzder believes that fast-food customers are more discerning than people think they are and want higher-quality ingredients—such as beef from an Angus cow—than those found in ordinary patties.
The Six Dollar Burger did well with customers and in 2002 won the Silver Skillet Award from Restaurant Business magazine. Puzder saw the future. "I think a lot of this everybody's-gonna-eat-healthy thing is more a concern of people in the media than a concern of people who come into our restaurants," he says. Fast-food customers had indeed been clamoring for healthy alternatives, which prompted an industrywide stampede toward salads and orange slices, but just because customers wanted them on the menu didn't necessarily mean they wanted to eat them. For all the buzz created by snack wraps and yogurt parfaits, burgers and fries remain the two most frequently ordered items in American restaurants, according to industry research group NPD Foodworld. In fact, the addition of salads at McDonald's and other chains is partly aimed at drawing more burger-eating men by placating wives and girlfriends who would otherwise veto the restaurant choice. "What people say they want and what they do don't match up," says Darren Tristano, an executive vice president at Technomic, a food-industry research and consulting firm. "If they say, 'I'm gonna order more salads,' they're going to order more french fries." CKE marketing head Brad Haley, who looks a bit like a golfer with his short-sleeve shirt, goatee, and nascent paunch, echoes the sentiment. "People say what makes them feel better about themselves in surveys."
So Hardee's dispensed with any semblance of social conscience and in 2003 introduced the Thickburger. In 2004, this begat the downright lurid Monster Thickburger, a messy two-thirds of a pound of charbroiled Angus beef containing more than 1,400 calories and 107 grams of fat. Soon afterward, when McDonald's, under fire in the wake of Super Size Me, responded to critics by phasing out its supersize menu, Thickburgers were there to help fill the void. Sales soared, nutritionists cried foul, and a string of burgers of escalating perversity followed from both Hardee's and Carl's Jr.: the Breakfast Burger (a huge patty crowned with a fried egg, bacon, and hash browns), the Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger (topped with sliced steak and cheese), and the Pastrami Burger (take a guess).
When the latter two prompted a horrified Jay Leno to denounce CKE for using meat as "a condiment for other meats," CKE was delighted and started touting "meat as a condiment" in its promotional materials. "When we do a big, decadent burger," says Haley, a man whose office fridge is full of nothing but springwater and Diet Coke, "we'll send the press release to Jay Leno, and we're not afraid if he says, 'This disgusting thing is 5,000 calories.'?"
Leno's disgust has become a reliable boost to CKE's sales. Every time the company introduces a new item, he attacks it, but not before running down its entire list of ingredients in detail, as he did in late 2007 when Hardee's unveiled its contribution to the rapidly growing breakfast market, the Country Breakfast Burrito. Consisting of two eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, cheese, and sausage gravy in a flour tortilla, it has 60 grams of fat and more than 900 calories—the biggest in the land, a belt notch ahead of the Carl's Jr. Breakfast Burger, which comes in at 830 calories. When Haley was quoted as saying that the burrito finally makes a big country breakfast portable, Leno, in one of two separate bits he did on the breakfast beast, quipped, "See, this way you can take it with you in the ambulance after your heart stops." Says Puzder: "A lot of people think Leno's on the payroll."
Some other major fast-food chains have been heading down the same path as Hardee's. Six weeks after Hardee's Country Breakfast Burrito appeared, McDonald's countered with the 610-calorie McSkillet Burrito, featuring egg, sausage, potatoes, and American and Monterey Jack cheeses. In the past four years, Burger King and McDonald's have introduced Angus burgers, and Burger King went for sheer excess with its colossal Meatnormous omelet and BK Stackers (multiple patties in one bun). Burger King began offering stackers in 2006 because "we went out and talked to superfans, and they told us a menu gap we had was a really indulgent meat-and-cheese burger," says John Schaufelberger, head of global product innovation. Since then, Burger King's share price has nearly doubled. A spokeswoman for McDonald's said it is testing the Angus burger in response to customer wishes. McDonald's has otherwise lagged in the big-burger arms race but has dramatically boosted its share price in the past five years via a multipronged approach involving everything from premium coffee and better service to an expanded menu and the ubiquitous I'm Lovin' It marketing campaign.
Last summer, Wendy's introduced the Baconator—two hamburger patties, two slices of American cheese, and no fewer than six strips of bacon. Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch says research shows that customers had an unslakable yearning for more bacon. "Well, if they like two strips of bacon, would they like three? And if they like three, how about six? And that's where the Baconator came from," he says, adding, "there is a trend toward large, indulgent hamburgers." Wendy's (which now also serves stacker-style burgers) reinforced that trend in November, when it announced it would be creating a Philly Style Hoagie Burger—two patties covered with salami, ham, and creamy Italian dressing. And both Burger King and Wendy's have run quirky, somewhat absurdist ads tailored specifically for the young, hungry, male sensibility, though their spots aren't nearly as provocative as CKE's. In 2006, for instance, Burger King launched its I Am Man campaign, in which fed-up men who marched down the street decrying "chick food" opted for Burger King's Texas Double Whopper.
Newton, Mississippi, is a place of churches, farmland, and small, low-slung, porch-heavy houses. But the highway on the outskirts of town is strewn with the sorts of chain restaurants that have contributed to Mississippi's standing as the fattest state in the nation. A whopping 30.6 percent of its residents are obese, according to the nonprofit group Trust for America's Health.
Vying for the attention of passersby are a McDonald's, a Sonic, a K.F.C., a Taco Bell, and, in the shadow of a Wal-Mart Supercenter poised atop a grassy incline, a Hardee's.
This is prime Hardee's country. According to CKE's internal market numbers, two-thirds of Hardee's locations are in small towns, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. Blue-collar white males are well represented in Hardee's customer base, and one-third of all its customers fall within the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic. More than 70 percent of Thickburgers are bought by men. Carl's Jr.'s patrons also skew male, though they're more moneyed; 29 percent make more than $75,000 a year.
"We have a lot of young, hungry guys, a lot of construction workers," says Bill Boddie, who owns the most Hardee's franchises—343 restaurants in North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia. "And they burn up calories. They want something big, and they want something good to eat. They're the ones who buy the huge burgers and the huge breakfast burritos."
At around 1 p.m. on a Sunday, the Newton Hardee's is starting to fill up. It's a beige-and-red box, incongruously colorful against its mostly gray setting, giving it the air of forced gaiety and desolation one tends to find in fast-food restaurants located by highway interchanges. A good number of patrons come in wearing their church clothes. The clean interior is adorned with comment cards and vintage photos of Hardee's restaurants before they went to seed in the '90s. Like Carl's Jr., Hardee's offers limited table service, so after ordering, you take a seat and one of the employees working the counter brings your meal to you. Tony Adams, a big, bearded 45-year-old wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a blue-and-white trucker hat, has been working as a cattle-and-crop researcher for the state for 26 years. His current title is dairy herdsman. Today, he sits in the middle of the dining room with his diminutive, white-haired mother, Arlie Mae Adams, who is clad in a robin's-egg-blue outfit and gold flats. They're regulars: Tony says he eats at Hardee's four times a month, sometimes breakfast, sometimes lunch or dinner. He's quietly, methodically working on a Philly Cheese Steak Thickburger, a large fries, and a tankard of soda. It takes him a solid 15 minutes to get through it all. Arlie Mae is eating a comparatively dainty Big Chicken Fillet Sandwich (770 calories) and fries and drinking a "small" Coke, which is about the size of her thigh. A quote printed on her cup, which reads "Hardee's knows what America wants," is attributed to the Marshall Independent, a Minnesota newspaper.
His lunch effectively vanquished, Tony packs up his wrappers, ambles across the dining room, and dumps them in the trash, then plunks himself back down at the table. "It was good," he says, leaning back in his chair. Asked whether he buys into the notion that a fast-food chain shouldn't sell such hefty fare, he rolls his eyes and snorts. "I wouldn't agree with that," he says. "I don't got no complaints."
"To me," chimes in Arlie Mae, "Hardee's is the best fast food in town."
There's a certain kind of genius at work here, evidence of a well-thought-out defensive game. By not merely disclosing the fat and calorie content of its products but actively boasting about it, CKE effectively declaws the so-called food police, who act on the assumption that people eat fast food only because they don't know it's bad for them. This frankness makes CKE less vulnerable to the sort of social, political, and even legal pressure that its rivals—particularly McDonald's, which offers pedometers with its Go Active Adult Happy Meal—feel so acutely. Far from shameful, it's a point of manly pride to go to Hardee's for lunch and scarf down a Monster Thickburger, a chocolate shake (made with real ice cream, it has three times the fat of the McDonald's version), and a medium fries, which adds up to 170 grams of fat and 2,760 calories. And the more society's nannies say you shouldn't, the more you kind of want to.
The same subversive approach is applied to the company's advertising. In general, CKE doesn't market directly to children. It did recently sign a promotional deal with the producers of the animated film Igor—which stars, coincidentally, Jay Leno. But Puzder says the agreement involves only in-restaurant publicity (small posters as well as toys or action figures given away with meals), not TV or radio, which spares the company trouble with its detractors.
Instead, CKE continues to target the aforementioned "young, hungry guys," along with the people who, for whatever reason, aspire to be like them. This gives the firm a fair amount of leeway. Its most famous ad starred a soaked, soapy, scantily clad Paris Hilton washing a car while eating the mammoth Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger. The spot created a big stir, which culminated in Bill O'Reilly's expressing his outrage in two separate segments (during which the ad ran continuously), telling Puzder, "Families looking at this…a lot of them are going to go, 'Well, we hate you. We hate you.'?" Puzder says, "They complained about the sex in the ad, and I said there wasn't even a guy in it. It was a beautiful woman in a bathing suit eating a burger and washing a car. What could be more American?"
Other ads have included a gorgeous woman riding a mechanical bull while eating a Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger, an attractive woman inserting her entire fist into her mouth to demonstrate the oral capacity one would need to down a Monster Thickburger in a single go, and a Playmate-flanked Hugh Hefner holding one of several varieties of the Six Dollar Burger, with the tagline, "Because guys don't like the same thing night after night." The Hefner spot drew fire from televangelist Robert Schuller, who was quoted in news reports as saying that devout Christian Carl Karcher was "just heartbroken" by the wanton carnal innuendo on display. Puzder says Karcher, who maintained an office at CKE's offices in Anaheim until his death January 11 at the age of 90, "hated the ads for 12 years" but understood their necessity. Puzder, a Catholic, says, "I'm probably more a member of the religious right than I am anything else, so these are my people I'm offending. That's kind of a weird thing, but I can't run the business to the aesthetic tastes of any particular group in the country. And I will tell you, when we run these ads, sales go up and they don't come down."
While the stocks of other fast-food chains had mixed results in the second half of 2007, CKE's share price tumbled. Puzder says an unfounded report in June that CKE was a buyout target artificially drove up the stock price, which was then buffeted by rising food and fuel costs. He says the company, which owns 30 percent of its restaurants and franchises the rest, is more vulnerable to cost increases than Burger King or McDonald's, which have a much higher proportion of franchised outlets, where local owners bear the risk. CKE has sold about 136 of its Hardee's to franchisees in the past year, Puzder adds, "so we've reduced our exposure" as well as raised money to build and remodel more restaurants. It also sold off the underperforming La Salsa chain to focus on Green Burrito and Red Burrito, which are often located within Carl's Jr. and Hardee's locations, respectively. CKE is looking to expand Carl's Jr. to Canada and push Hardee's deeper into its U.S. markets, focusing especially on Texas and the Atlanta area. "We have a lot of room to grow," Puzder says.
Amid all the bluster, CKE has made a couple of concessions. Carl's Jr. offers a charbroiled-chicken salad that has just seven grams of fat, and Hardee's serves a barbecued-chicken sandwich. "It's a very healthy sandwich. I think we sell about two a day," Pudzer quips. Both chains offer token salads, just lettuce and tomato, that don't sell either. Recently CKE pulled the Double Six Dollar Burger from the Carl's Jr. menu in California and plans to do the same nationwide, due to a lawsuit alleging that the two mammoth patties contain an unacceptable amount, according to California law, of a carcinogen commonly created by grilling meats. This means a burger so big it may actually have been illegal. It's still available to customers upon request, which is tantamount to the public's giving informed consent under the law. And on the ad side, a recent spot for the Carl's Jr. patty-melt sandwich—featuring a young, blond teacher with no backside to speak of gyrating on her desk while her students rap about how they like "flat buns"—drew such heated protest from teachers that Puzder withdrew it. "I can defend the sex," he says, "but I can't fight teachers."
All that being said, he plans to stay the course. CKE's bare-bones product-development team of 16 people tests new Carl's Jr. items at corporate headquarters on a sampling of its own employees. One of the female testers, public relations manager Beth Mansfield, appears dazed after enduring one such session. It was "three solid hours of eating," she says. If a quorum can't be assembled, CKE calls in some employees from the office next door, which houses an alternative-energy firm by the name of Clipper Windpower.
Late last year, Carl's Jr. all but parodied the smoothie craze with its Strawberry Banana Smoothie (made with ice cream, it has nearly 700 calories). The development team is currently working on a Cap'n Crunch shake, featuring vanilla ice cream and crushed Cap'n Crunch cereal. The next sandwich is going to be a spicy jalapeño burger for Hardee's, with sliced jalapeños and a liberal slathering of its zesty Southwest sauce.
Beyond that, CKE is tight-lipped. But whatever it is that CKE ends up unleashing on the world, it's safe to say it will be huge, fattening, delicious, and marketed, however unwittingly, by Jay Leno, Bill O'Reilly, and entire battalions of the gastronomically correct.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Restaurants to Post Calories
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/nyregion/23menu.html
January 23, 2008
City Tries Again to Require Restaurants to Post Calories
By DIANE CARDWELL
New Yorkers wondering just how many calories they are consuming in each grande-size white hot chocolate at Starbucks (490) or Double Whopper with cheese at Burger King (990) could soon see those numbers printed alongside the price, according to revised regulations approved on Tuesday by the city’s Board of Health.
Under the rules, which officials rewrote after a federal judge struck down similar provisions in September, any chain that operates at least 15 outlets nationwide would have to display calorie content on their menu boards, menus or food tags — essentially wherever the restaurant lists the information that customers use to make their choices.
“Most people underestimate calorie content by a lot,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, adding that he considered the rules a potent weapon in the crusade against rising obesity rates. “Even dietitians get a lot of it wrong.”
Dr. Frieden said his department’s research showed that consumers often make faulty assumptions about the calorie counts of items on a menu. But when they have the information, he said, they tend to choose food with fewer calories.
As a result of the regulations, set to go into effect on March 31, Dr. Frieden predicted that some restaurants will eliminate some of their offerings, like appetizers that top 2,000 calories.
Chuck Hunt, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association, which successfully challenged the earlier rules in Federal District Court in Manhattan, said his group was considering suing over the revised regulations.
“It’s cumbersome, and it really isn’t going to work,” he said, adding that many operators of fast-food restaurants were franchisees who would not be able to easily afford to comply with the rules. He said that federal regulations designed to reduce obesity by listing calorie content on food in supermarkets had not kept the epidemic at bay.
In December 2006, the Board of Health approved the first set of menu-labeling requirements for chain restaurants, making New York the first city to do so.
The city, seeking to make the requirement less burdensome on restaurant owners, had limited it to those that had already disclosed calorie counts in some way. Some chains, including Wendy’s, White Castle and Quiznos, stopped providing the information at their restaurants in the city while they weighed how or if to comply.
Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy’s, said that although the chain was in favor of providing the information, the new Board of Health regulations would be difficult to put in place because there were so many variations in their meals. It is almost impossible, he said, to accurately represent calories with a single number.
“For us, the idea makes sense,” Mr. Lynch said. “But now take the idea and put it into practice at the restaurant and it is complicated, very difficult to do.”
Wendy’s, he said, places a poster with the complete nutritional content of the various components of their meals as close to the cash register as possible. He said that was a better solution.
Representatives of White Castle and Quiznos did not return telephone messages seeking comment.
In the lawsuit filed by the Restaurant Association, Judge Richard J. Holwell ruled that the original regulation was pre-empted by the federal Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 because of the way the city had limited the chains to which it applied. In his decision, he provided a framework for the city to redraft its rules, which health officials say they closely followed.
The new rules will apply to about 10 percent of the city’s 23,000 restaurants, about the same number as would have been affected by the earlier version. The restaurants that will fall under the new regulation serve about one-third of the food eaten away from home each year, according to health officials.
“The real question for us is, is the industry going to become part of the solution or are they going to keep going to court to hide from the customers what they’re serving them?” Dr. Frieden said. “If your business model depends on keeping information from your consumers, that’s a problem.”
January 23, 2008
City Tries Again to Require Restaurants to Post Calories
By DIANE CARDWELL
New Yorkers wondering just how many calories they are consuming in each grande-size white hot chocolate at Starbucks (490) or Double Whopper with cheese at Burger King (990) could soon see those numbers printed alongside the price, according to revised regulations approved on Tuesday by the city’s Board of Health.
Under the rules, which officials rewrote after a federal judge struck down similar provisions in September, any chain that operates at least 15 outlets nationwide would have to display calorie content on their menu boards, menus or food tags — essentially wherever the restaurant lists the information that customers use to make their choices.
“Most people underestimate calorie content by a lot,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, adding that he considered the rules a potent weapon in the crusade against rising obesity rates. “Even dietitians get a lot of it wrong.”
Dr. Frieden said his department’s research showed that consumers often make faulty assumptions about the calorie counts of items on a menu. But when they have the information, he said, they tend to choose food with fewer calories.
As a result of the regulations, set to go into effect on March 31, Dr. Frieden predicted that some restaurants will eliminate some of their offerings, like appetizers that top 2,000 calories.
Chuck Hunt, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association, which successfully challenged the earlier rules in Federal District Court in Manhattan, said his group was considering suing over the revised regulations.
“It’s cumbersome, and it really isn’t going to work,” he said, adding that many operators of fast-food restaurants were franchisees who would not be able to easily afford to comply with the rules. He said that federal regulations designed to reduce obesity by listing calorie content on food in supermarkets had not kept the epidemic at bay.
In December 2006, the Board of Health approved the first set of menu-labeling requirements for chain restaurants, making New York the first city to do so.
The city, seeking to make the requirement less burdensome on restaurant owners, had limited it to those that had already disclosed calorie counts in some way. Some chains, including Wendy’s, White Castle and Quiznos, stopped providing the information at their restaurants in the city while they weighed how or if to comply.
Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy’s, said that although the chain was in favor of providing the information, the new Board of Health regulations would be difficult to put in place because there were so many variations in their meals. It is almost impossible, he said, to accurately represent calories with a single number.
“For us, the idea makes sense,” Mr. Lynch said. “But now take the idea and put it into practice at the restaurant and it is complicated, very difficult to do.”
Wendy’s, he said, places a poster with the complete nutritional content of the various components of their meals as close to the cash register as possible. He said that was a better solution.
Representatives of White Castle and Quiznos did not return telephone messages seeking comment.
In the lawsuit filed by the Restaurant Association, Judge Richard J. Holwell ruled that the original regulation was pre-empted by the federal Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 because of the way the city had limited the chains to which it applied. In his decision, he provided a framework for the city to redraft its rules, which health officials say they closely followed.
The new rules will apply to about 10 percent of the city’s 23,000 restaurants, about the same number as would have been affected by the earlier version. The restaurants that will fall under the new regulation serve about one-third of the food eaten away from home each year, according to health officials.
“The real question for us is, is the industry going to become part of the solution or are they going to keep going to court to hide from the customers what they’re serving them?” Dr. Frieden said. “If your business model depends on keeping information from your consumers, that’s a problem.”
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