foodha for thought – menuism blog

It’s been almost a week since McDonald’s employees deep-fried mass amounts of chicken for their big Southern Style Chicken Biscuit/Sandwich give-away. In the morning, the chicken is served on a biscuit; after breakfast hours, the patty is served on McDonald’s famous thin, white hamburger buns. The fall-out has been predictable. The blogger behind Brand Eating called the biscuit “a bit dry”; the Salt Lake Tribune called it “tender but bland,” giving it a C grade; and Chick-fil-A fans called foul.

It’ll be interesting to see how the breakfast biscuit fares in regions that think the practice of eating chicken before noon is bizarre, if not downright barbaric. The sandwich was conceptualized as a response to the popularity of Atlanta’s Chick-Fil-a’s breakfast chicken sandwich with butter and a pickle, so Southerners may well be more accustomed to tucking a napkin over their shirts and digging in to chicken on the ride to work. Northerners may have to be eased into the concept — and free food just might do it. “McDonald’s Corp. wants you to believe that chicken is the next great American breakfast meat,” Mike Hughlett of the Chicago Tribune writes. “Sound far-fetched?”

Sort of, but after the Filet-O-Fish, I’m convinced that McDonald’s can launch anything.

But if the southern-style chicken push yields results and profits, it’ll strengthen McDonald’s for the future. According to the Tribune article, the last major advertising campaign for burgers was back in 2001, but it’s added a new chicken product to its menu lineup every year since 2003, and plans to continue in the years to come.

Hughlett writes, “Chicken is one of four key areas the company identified in 2005 as critical for long-term sales growth, along with beverages, particularly specialty coffee; bolstering its already strong breakfast sales; and extending store hours.”

In the United States, beef consumption is down and chicken is in demand. With the economy getting a bit wilder, and people watching their pocketbooks, McDonald’s seems to have chosen its new line as a meal it can produce for cheap and it can sell cheap. But will it sell at all? And will the corporation’s chicken trend reverberate with consumers in a way that the chic food (or chick food, if you’d prefer) of recent years – salads, flavored coffees, and the like – have not? Is McDonald’s reading the barometer of the American palate correctly?