Fast food is riding a wave of change whipped up by forces demographic, economic, cultural, technological —even aesthetic. Our global, postindustrial era has conditioned us to expect more from our fast food than the basics.
If fast-food operators and the manufacturers who serve them hope to remain relevant, they’ve got to evolve along with the identity of fast food—but without straying too far from the principles that made the category such a phenomenon in the first place. Only by treading the line between novelty and familiarity can we bring this archetypal American institution into the 21st century.
Fast food for new millennials
Rumors of a home-cooking Renaissance have been greatly exaggerated, according to Marcia Schurer, president, Culinary Connections, Chicago. “No matter how much is being written about more cooking in the home,” she says, “I don’t see that happening, and I don’t think that’s going to change.” Close to 50% of our food dollars wind up footing fare eaten away from home, and no small portion of that goes to fast-food outlets, which are slated to rack up $150.1 billion in sales this year.Generation Y, or “millennials,” more than anyone else, are determining the future of fast food. “Based on the macro research that we’ve done,” says John Li, senior executive chef, Kraft Foodservice, Glenview, IL, “the No. 1 message that we communicate to our customers, especially when we start talking about fast casual and QSR, is that when you think about what’s happening with regard to the generational influence, it’s all about millennials.”
Millennials’ dining whims will have a “big effect on how operators pull together their whole menu strategies and forecast their menu pipeline for the future,” Li predicts.
Look how their culinary temerity has helped mainstream global flavors. Li, just one generation removed as an Xer, recalls, “When I grew up in Buffalo, NY, all we had within QSR was, basically, McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s—the ‘Big Three.’” In this representative American city today, however, “it ranges anywhere from Chinese to very authentic Latin American– based foods, to Southeast Asian options,” he notes.
Major operators regularly roll out international ideas nationwide after auditioning them in carefully chosen markets. According to research from Nation’s Restaurant News, more than 52% of QSRs already menu Mexican-style items—and they’re not all Taco Bells. Jack in the Box, Inc., San Diego, has its Meaty Breakfast Burrito and Chipotle Chicken Ciabatta sandwich, and the premium Southwest Salad from The McDonald’s Corporation, Oak Brook, IL, has been going gangbusters since its introduction in April. CKE Restaurants, Carpinteria, CA, has long co-branded its Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s concepts with Mexican-themed Green Burrito and Red Burrito, respectively, but those outfits are now thriving in places like Oklahoma, Portland, OR, and Salt Lake City.
“From an ethnic standpoint, there’s more latitude, more creative license,” says Jason Dumo, director of marketing, Griffith Laboratories U.S.A., Inc., and Innova, Alsip, IL. “If a customer wants something that’s spicy, don’t just show them heat. Show them spice delivered through different cuisines—what Asian, or even Indian or Moroccan, spices would be.”
The moral of the story, though, is all about choice. So many different players have come into the market, Li says, “that there are so many things for consumers to choose. I may want a burger one day, but you know what? I want fish tacos the next.”
Shape-shifting categories
Traditional fast food was designed to have a very limited menu, notes Schurer. “It concentrated on key or core strengths, and if that was hamburgers, that meant you got hamburgers. It was a very easy, facilitated system. It didn’t have too many ingredients. It didn’t have too many processes. It didn’t have too much equipment. It wasn’t labor intensive and, most importantly, it didn’t require any culinary skills.”But supermarket deli cases and prepared-food departments started upgrading, and “grocery stores began to provide these ready-to-heat- and-eat meals away from home” that had once been the province of fast food alone, Schurer says. That spelled competition.
Fast-casual concepts “are based on noodles and toppings; sushi ones; sandwich ones; soup-and-sandwich ones; salads; and all kinds of ethnic ones,” Schurer says. Vegetarian? No problem. On a diet? There’s something for you.
