Credit Watch

What if an industry dramatically transformed its product line and no one noticed? Ask QSRs.

By Scott Hume, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 10/1/2007

A great deal of time, thought and planning goes into changing a menu, but that task clearly is more easily accomplished than changing minds, habits and perceptions.

Consumers asked quick-service restaurants for higher-quality, more-varied and more-healthful food choices. Those requests were communicated to QSRs directly and through buying behavior as many consumers traded up to fast-casual concepts that already understood that quality expectations had risen.

Glance at almost any QSR menu now and it is evident that the limited-service category not only got the message, it responded with amazing speed. In a very short time, what Americans know as "fast food" has been dramatically revised and improved. What is notable, for example, about the Southwest Salad that McDonald’s introduced this year is not simply that it is a main-course meal—entrée salads being rare on QSR menus a decade ago—but that its ingredients include oven-roasted tomatoes and corn, poblano chiles and a lime wedge, all recent additions to the QSR pantry.

The evolution is taking place everywhere, not just under the Arches. In the Pacific Northwest, Burgerville has added hot dogs made with preservative-free beef, and it serves them with potato chips freshly cut and cooked in trans-fat-free canola oil. Nonfried chicken items at KFC include the Tender Roast and Oven Roasted Twister sandwiches and the Roasted Caesar Salad. Hardee’s offers Angus beef burgers and thick-cut, skin-on fries. Yogurt is on the menu at Wendy’s and several other chains; bottled water is everywhere; and kids meals include fruit, milk and other healthful options.

But while QSRs’ menu upgrades have received some grudging acknowledgement from critics, the scope of the effort remains underappreciated. R&I’s New American Diner Study asked more than 3,000 consumers if they believe quick-service food quality has improved in the past year, and 61% responded that they believe it has "stayed about the same."

Consumers may not be noticing the improvements, or they may simply be continually raising their expectations. Both explanations are frustrating for the chains. At a recent roundtable discussion with this year’s winners of R&I’s Consumers’ Choice in Chains awards, one chain executive said that getting customers to understand and appreciate the quality of meals served is "one of our biggest challenges." He added: "How do you communicate the quality piece to the customer? Because they expect more. … Food quality is the ante in the game. If you don’t have [high] food quality, you won’t be in the game."

That the Los Angeles City Council reportedly will be asked to consider a two-year moratorium on quick-service-restaurant development in an area of that city that has a disproportionately high obesity rate suggests that, at the least, the councilwoman proposing the ban hasn’t paid sufficient attention to QSRs’ menu transformation. She is not alone in failing to appreciate the depth and speed of that process, and that is unfortunate.

Consumers’ expectations about quality, variety and healthfulness will continue to rise, as they should. But consumers also should glance over their shoulders occasionally and realize that foodservice is catching up to those expectations. Fast.