Burger King Is Making Major Changes to 2 Fan-Favorite Menu Items in an Attempt to Combat Inflation The company's largest franchisor is making some not-so-beloved changes in an attempt to offset labor and commodity inflation.
By Emily Rella Edited by Amanda Breen
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
If you're lucky enough, you might know the elated feeling that comes with accidentally receiving an onion ring in your order of French fries or an accidental extra nugget in your order of 10 at Burger King.
But thanks to continuing supply-chain issues that have plagued the fast food industry since the onset of the pandemic, it looks like there might be a lot less to love when cruising through the BK drive-thru.
Per a call transcript obtained by MarketWatch, the company has revealed some devastating news: Burger King's largest franchisor in the U.S. will begin dropping nugget order offerings from 10 piece orders to 8, as well as remove the Whopper from the menu's promotional discount offerings.
Related: Burger King Reveals Major Changes for Its Whopper and Other Menu Items
"As you may have recently read, the Burger King brand has about a dozen menu and promotional initiatives, some of which have already been implemented and some that will be implemented over the course of this year," said chief executive of Carrols, Daniel Accordino, per the transcript of the call. "Recent actions in this regard from our franchisor[s] include lifting price caps on value menu items and reducing the number of nuggets [in] meals from 10 pieces to 8. The Whopper, the brand's most popular product by a wide margin, has also been removed as a core discount item and is no longer available in the two-for-six or two-for-five promotions."
The franchisor company also reported labor inflation costs after raising hourly wages by an average of 14% for employees while also facing an overall commodity inflation of 16% in Q1 of 2022 as compared to that of 2021.
"While we cannot predict when these inflationary cost pressures will end, we can say that we believe that in the back half of 2022, the year-over-year percentage increases for labor and commodity costs will moderate," Accordino said hopefully. "We also intend to continue to move pricing to partially offset inflation to the extent possible without impacting traffic."
Related: Burger King Enters the Chicken Sandwich War With the Ch'King
Burger King had around 18,625 restaurant locations across the globe by the end of 2020, with a Whopping (pun intended) 18,573 of these restaurants being franchised.
The chain is a part of Restaurant Brands International, which also oversees Popeyes and Tim Hortons.
The parent company was down around 7.42% year over year as of Friday afternoon.
