Wendy's makes a major new addition to its breakfast menu

The chain's new breakfast burrito is designed as a particularly portable morning menu option.

Jan 23, 2024 - 00:30

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Wendy's makes a major new addition to its breakfast menu

While there are entire cult followings around a few specific breakfast items such as the Egg McMuffin, breakfast is usually an afterthought for most fast food chains.

The 25% of U.S. sales that McDonald's (MCD) - Get Free Report brings in from breakfast is one of the highest in the industry while chains like the Yum! Brands (YUM) - Get Free Report-owned Taco Bell offer a very limited menu of a few breakfast items and do not serve them at all at many locations.

One notable exception, particularly in the three years since the pandemic, has been Wendy's (WEN) - Get Free Report. After developing an expanded menu of breakfast sandwiches and sweet morning treats such as the French Toast Sticks in 2021, Wendy's saw sales derived from breakfast rise from 8.5% to over 10% in just a few months as the chain continues to pump significant resources into having a strong breakfast offering.

The new Wendy's Breakfast Burrito will be available from Jan. 22.

Wendy's promises 'all the best part of breakfast rolled up'

The latest morning-themed menu item, which will be available at Wendy's locations across the U.S. starting from Jan. 22, is a new Breakfast Burrito that puts two scrambled eggs, six strips of applewood-smoked bacon, seasoned potatoes, two slices of American cheese and some Swiss cheese sauce inside a flour tortilla for a portable wrap.

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It is a 720-calorie behemoth that will be sold at a general price of $3.29 at Wendy's locations across the country (the actual price might vary depending on the price of eggs in one's area.) To give a nod to the Tex-Mex nature of the dish, the burrito will also be served with two packets of Cholula Original Hot Sauce for each order.

"With our new Breakfast Burrito, we've carefully balanced taste and convenience to create a portable masterpiece," Wendy's Global Vice President of Culinary Innovation John Li said in a statement. "Our newest breakfast innovation serves up all the best parts of Wendy’s breakfast rolled up into one delicious burrito."

New Wendy's item could take on McDonald's, Taco Bell

Unlike many of the LTOs to appear over the last few years, the new breakfast item is presented as a permanent addition to Wendy's breakfast menu alongside items such as the Sausage, Egg and Cheese Croissant and the Breakfast Baconator (the Breakfast burrito is being presented as a wrap version of the latter.)

Industry insiders have also observed that the item is likely to be a take on competing menu items like the different versions of Taco Bell's own breakfast burritos or the McDonald's Sausage Burrito. Both breakfast items have developed a decades-long fan following even if they make up only a small portion of overall sales for the chain.

Given that these items have helped cement the egg-filled burrito with many people's association of a fast food breakfast, the new item is a natural fit for a chain that has been putting a lot of its development and expansion efforts into breakfast. The Breakfast Burrito is also marketed as something that is particularly easy to eat on the go.

"At the breakfast daypart, we continue to execute against our playbook of driving sales through innovation and promotions," Wendy's Chief Executive Todd Penegor said during the company's recent third-quarter earnings call.