Burger King Satisfries: Are healthier options the next trend for fast food restaurants?

By Nicolas Watson

Fast food is becoming healthier – at least for one popular fast food chain. With the introduction of ¨Satisfries¨, Burger King is leading the way in what may become a new trend for healthy fast food.

¨Satisfries¨ are a low-calorie version of Burger King´s original fries and contain 40% less fast than fries from McDonald´s. Now people have the option to choose between full-fat fries and healthier ones. What impact will this have on fast food?  Are Satisfries the first of many “healthier” fast food options?

Interestingly enough, this is the first time we’ve seen a menu innovation around French Fries. Fast food chains have played around with healthier options in the past, for example grilled chicken wraps or low-calorie salads. What’s brilliant is that Burger King was able to think about a food innovation that satisfies a fried food craving. They aren’t trying to replace fries with apple slices like some other chains. They are looking to capture that satisfying fried food taste that people come to fast food restaurants for.  Such menu innovations in the fast food industry may become more common as consumers needs and consumption continue to change.

For some, this will impact where they decide to open their next location. To choose the next best real-estate location, they might want to consider working with a company like CHD Expert. Here at CHD Expert, we help businesses visualize the market landscape by providing them with information on chains headquarters, sub-franchisees, regional offices or even multi-concept operators. CHD Expert can even break down the market landscape do this down to the zip code level and provide a visual aid as to where any restaurant is located within the defined area.

For more information on food service data or chain locator tool, visit CHD Expert. Or reach out to me directly at nwatson@chd-expert.com.

We Sell Data, We Manage Data.

Author: Nico Watson

Here at CHD Expert, our main focus is data. We sell data, we manage data, and we create insights around data! Data is at the core of our business. Especially foodservice data. That’s what we specialize in. We know the foodservice market place better than any other “generic” data provider out there.

We can help you improve your sales and marketing efforts. Want more info or to talk to one of our foodservice experts? Email me, Nicolas Watson (nwatson@chd-expert.com) to discuss how we can help your business.

In the mean time, this week we saw an awesome infographic that is all about data and we wanted to share it. Check out this amazing infographic about how Data Never Sleeps! Pretty amazing right? Thanks Domo for putting this visual all about data together!

Florida Restaurant and Lodging Show – Trade Show Recap

At the end of September CHD Expert attended the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Show in that took place in Orlando on September 22-24th of 2013. This show allows us to discover new foodservice and hospitality industry trends, ideas and products, and interact with fellow foodservice industry professionals on the trade show floor!

Overall, it was a great show for CHD Expert and we want to give a quick overview of trends and other findings that we took away from attending. Here are the four key take-aways from the show:

1. Overall the trade show traffic was down. There weren’t as many exhibitors as there have been in the past.
2. There were far fewer food distributers and food manufacturers at the show. We found that there just weren’t as many companies giving out food samples like in past shows.
3. The foodservice technology segment is growing. There were far more POS and App Development companies than we’ve ever seen before.
4.  Specialty foods were abundant. The Kosher, Gluten Free, Vegan food segment continues to grow it’s presence at trade shows.

Incase you didn’t get to attend the show we wanted to share a few pictures we took from our booth and around the trade show floor. Check them out!

CHD Expert’s Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show Trade Show Booth

Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show Trade Show Floor

If you’d like to talk about other trends or stats you gathered from the trade show we’d love to chat! Please feel free to email us at Bbloom@chd-expert.com or give us a call  (312) 768-6900.

We look forward to hearing from you.