Burger King has regularly pushed the boundaries of burger innovation.
Much of that innovation comes from the company’s locations all over the world.
Restaurant Brands International (QSR) CEO Josh Kobza highlighted the chain’s non-United States results during it first-quarter earnings call.
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“Shifting now to International. We’re pleased with our relative performance this quarter, delivering 2.6% comparable sales or roughly 3.7%, excluding the headwind from Leap Day and 8.6% system-wide sales growth. We saw solid growth in many of our largest markets, including the UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Australia. These markets share a few common traits, compelling everyday value, exciting menu innovation, modern restaurant image, strong digital capabilities and a focus on restaurant level execution,” he explained.
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Sales in the U.S. were not as strong.
“Shifting now to Burger King in the U.S., where we saw a 1.1% decrease in comparable sales, or relatively flat results adjusting for leap day. Burger King U.S. continued to outperform the broader burger QSR category, reflecting the ongoing progress of our claim to flame plan in capturing share,” he said.
Burger King U.S. may have to borrow the latest idea from its Japanese restaurants.
The Whopper is still Burger King’s most-successful sandwich.
Image source: Shutterstock
Burger King’s new burger celebrates pickleball
Burger King Japan has partnered with the Pickleball Japan Federation (PJF) to support the growth of the sport in the country. The fast-food chain is clearly having fun with the play on words, but pickleball actually has no relationship to the popular burger topping.
That’s not stopping Burger King from launching a wild new burger that does not follow the traditional rules generally applied to hamburgers. The Pickleball Burger won’t use a traditional bun.
Burger King describes the new burger a “large, American-style rice burger, with three flame-grilled 100%-beef patties sandwiched between special rice patties that have been jointly developed with Hachidaime Gihey, a long-established rice shop in Kyoto.”
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American-style seems to describe the burger patties, not the rice patties being used as the bun.
The Pickleball Burger appears to have pickles on two layers, but no other toppings. The burger, which has been released will be available for a limited time starting at a cost of 1,790 yen or $12.28.
Burger King usually uses the Whopper name
The Pickleball Burger isn’t the Pickleball Whopper because it sort of a sequel to last year’s Kyoto Whopper.
“The Kyoto Whopper uses Japanese-grown rice, but not in the way that we’re used to seeing. Whereas typical “rice burgers” use rice as substitutes for the bun, the Kyoto Whopper has a rice patty in addition to an all-beef one, sandwiched inside a sliced bread bun along with lettuce, tomato, and onion,” Sora News 24 shared.
Burger King has leaned on the Whopper name heavily.
“This quarter, strong value offerings like the $5 duos and $7 trios were complemented by premium innovation, including the Steakhouse Bacon Whopper, which achieved one of our highest product satisfaction scores to date,’ Kobza said.
The CEO plans to do more of the in the chain’s global markets. Plans include building the Burger King brand.
“I think when you look at the Burger King brand in international, it’s a bit different. It has some really great qualities that are — that position it to grow so well. We’ve got a strong brand positioning,” he said. “We’ve got modern restaurants in almost all of our markets.Â
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The company has room for growth, however, and there’s always room for more Whopper.
“We have a lot more digital business as well. And because of a lot of those things, we have pretty great brand perception and really good food quality perception in those markets, where we balance some of our favorites like the Whopper with strong localization that each of our teams bring,” he added.
