Fast-food chains look to keep food crisp as deliveries soar
MCDONALD'S Corp rolled out its new Crispy Chicken Sandwich in February. Wendy's Co is selling Crispy Chicken Nuggets. And chains like Shake Shack Inc are known for having some of the fast-food industry's crispiest french fries.
With delivery and to-go orders soaring during the pandemic, marketing “crisp” is risky if the food arrives at consumers' homes limp and listless. In a quest to keep the crunch as long as possible, many chains are tweaking their recipes, trying different additives, formulations, cooking techniques and temperatures.
Delivery orders at US restaurants were 154 per cent higher in January 2021 than they were a year earlier, according to data analytics firm The NPD Group/ CREST.
Delivery comprised 12 per cent of all restaurant orders in January 2021, versus just 5 per cent a year prior. A chicken-fingersand-fries combo was the top food item ordered for delivery in 2020 by third-party delivery service DoorDash Inc.
But crispier food can cost more. A 30-pound box of the cheapest french-fries can run about $12 to $15 wholesale to restaurants, according to Barry Friends, a partner at food industry consultant Pentallect. Top tier fries made with drier, higher-quality potatoes and sealants can run up to $45 a box.
White Castle, with roughly 375 locations, is “testing a different fry to see if we can get something that does hold up longer, stays crispier,” chief operations officer Jeff Carper told Reuters. Starting late last year, the chain tested a new fry which costs more than its current fries, at about 60 locations through New York and
New Jersey, he said.
One McDonald's franchisee told Reuters its fries stay fresh about seven minutes after coming out of the fryer. “We have a lot of work to do here” to make food that travels better, the franchisee said.
“Delivery business is growing leaps and bounds.”
In a March video review of new fried chicken sandwiches from major chains, Restaurant Business magazine editor-in-chief Jonathan Maze said McDonald's Crispy Chicken sandwich is “not as crisp as the name would have you believe,” though he thought it was “a very nicely done piece of chicken”.
Two suppliers to McDonald's both of which also supply other chains — told Reuters in early February that McDonald's was trying new formulations for breading, hoping to devise a coating that can help its chicken patties stay crunchy longer.
The world's largest restaurant chain denied that any such “official tests” for were underway for its chicken or fries, but noted that it did introduce foil pouches to keep its new chicken sandwiches fresher for longer.