In an age when it’s PC for restaurants to be on the same team as anti-obesity advocates, I sometimes find it refreshing to find chains that just don’t seem to “get it,” and rather go the other direction.
One recent one stunned me – and NBC’s Brian Williams on his Rock Center program. He showed the Golden Corral commercial that I had already picked out as one worth mentioning in a trend report I’m working on. The commercial shows people of various ages enjoying and commenting on Golden Corral’s Chocolate Wonderfall (a chocolate fountain you can hold your ingredients under to coat them) and the chain’s new cotton candy. How fun. “It makes me feel like a kid again,” says one commercial actress. I actually don’t know what to say about that commercial, and neither did Brian Williams, other than to say, “wow.”
And now for some other “wow” menu items that go over the top in fat and/or calories that someday the chains won’t feel as comfortable promoting, probably for the pressure they will receive:
- Earlier in the year and for a limited time only, Jack in the Box offered a bacon flavored milkshake. But they may have been too chicken to go completely decadent, because the shake was said to appeal to vegetarians because, after all, it wasn’t real bacon, but bacon-flavored syrup. Come on guys.
- Burger King, on the other hand, just rolled out its bacon sundae made up of bacon, vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and caramel (510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar). But why am I mentioning nutrients? That’s not the point. They have guts. And that’s the point.
- Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme is a hit with me for its Doritos shell. Now that’s an idea. Besides the winning flavor, it’s also a great example of co-branding that we don’t see much of. I’d love to hear the story of how that came about.
- While we’re on the subject of Taco Bell, the chain is testing another idea for its new breakfast menu in Fresno and Southern California. It has added Mountain Dew A.M., which is a mix of Mountain Dew and orange juice. Well, why not?
This kind of sad state of traditional American cuisine may continue on (thinking of it from the perspective of any other culture looking at American food and the size of Americans), but what I think we’ll be hearing more about over time are things like this:
- Subway restaurants just became the first fast-food restaurant to meet the American Heart Association’s Heart-Check Meal Certification Program nutritional criteria. The Heart-Check logo will start showing up on Subway menus next to the Subway Fresh Fit meals.
That doesn’t sound as delicious, does it? But it’s certainly PC, and it’s a good thing. But it’s also a good thing that we all have the freedom to choose where and what we want to eat.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
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