Irene Jiang / Business Insider
Chicken has been one of the biggest battlegrounds for fast food in the last year.
- Wendy's is going all-in on its launch of a new breakfast menu in March.
- The chain isn't just going for McDonald's turf - it's also going for Chick-fil-A's.
- Chicken has become one of the biggest battlegrounds in fast food, and Wendy's is capitalizing on the trend with its honey butter chicken biscuit. In a recent head-to-head comparison of biscuits from Wendy's and Chick-fil-A, however, the latter came out on top.
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Wendy's is barreling onto the breakfast battlefield on March 2, and it will have a secret weapon to aid it: the chicken biscuit.
Wendy's has tried to find success in breakfast several times in the past. Breakfast behemoth McDonald's has stymied those past attempts by aggressively advertising and discounting its own breakfast in Wendy's breakfast markets. That means that Wendy's has been especially cautious with planning its newest breakfast menu.
But this time, Wendy's isn't just coming for McDonald's territory. The honey butter chicken biscuit, which will be part of the chain's new breakfast menu, was created to compete directly with Chick-fil-A's breakfast offering, Wendy's Chief Marketing Officer Carl Loredo told reporters at a recent media event.
"We filter everything through our 'food vision,'" John Li, Wendy's vice president of culinary innovation, said at the event. The goal of Wendy's culinary team, Li said, is to create menu items that are on-trend, but not too trendy.
Chicken has been one of the biggest trends in fast food in the last year.
Popeyes' chicken sandwich release disrupted the fried chicken industry, leading to a 37.9% increase in comparable sales for Popeyes in the fourth quarter of 2019. Since the Popeyes sandwich came out, other major chains have turned their attention to the chicken sandwich market. In January, a leaked email revealed that McDonald's franchisees were urging the chain to "stay focused" on creating a chicken sandwich to compete with Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.
Also in January, McDonald's rolled out two new chicken breakfast sandwiches: the McChicken Biscuit and the Chicken McGriddle.
Competing with Chick-fil-A on its home turf could be tricky. In October 2019, Business Insider compared Wendy's new chicken biscuit with Chick-fil-A's equivalent item. The verdict was not in Wendy's favor.