Burger King, the fast food giant best known for the Whopper, found new success in 2010 with the BK Fire-Grilled Rib limited time offer. The fall-off-the-bone ribs were an example of how quick service restaurants can successfully menu fresh pork. “We are excited to be the first national fast food hamburger restaurant to offer our guests an authentic bone-in rib menu offering,” said John Schaufelberger, Senior Vice President, Global Product Marketing and Innovation at Burger King Corp.
The journey to the BK Fire-Grilled Ribs took over a year, but the investment in time paid off in spades. “It’s a huge risk to add a new item to a menu – it has to meet an unfilled need,” said Jarrod Sutton, Assistant Vice President of Channel Marketing for the National Pork Board. It’s a high-stakes enterprise, reflected in the length of time required to get an idea out of brainstorm and on to the menu. The National Pork Board encourages restaurants like Burger King to include pork on the menu through sponsored immersion workshops in which attendees learn how pork can positively influence their menu mix. The best ideas to emerge from brainstorming sessions go through extensive research and production in test kitchens to ensure they are viable for restaurant investment. In the case of the BK Fire-Grilled Rib, development and in-house trials led to a yearlong test in four markets. Only after success in Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Greensboro, NC, and Orlando were the ribs offered to customers nationwide.
The spring LTO began on May 24, 2010, and was slated to run through the end of June. However, customer demand for the ribs was so high that the chain ran out of ribs over a week before the LTO was scheduled to end. With over 27 million ribs sold, the LTO was considered a smashing success. With an eight-piece combo meal selling for as much as $8.99, Burger King customers weren’t driven away by the higher price point. “Burger King deserves credit for trying something hard and making a success of it,” wrote Josh Ozersky in the “Taste of America” column for a July 2010 edition of Time Magazine. “The company did something it didn’t have to, and Americans stepped up too, paying more for less food because they liked it better.”
Enthusiastic consumer response to the ribs was driven in part by a national ad campaign that Burger King unveiled in May, featuring a winged pig convincing customers that the BK ribs were not only real, but also delicious. “Retailers across the country have told us that they’ve sold a lot of pork ribs this year, and we think much of this can be attributed to Burger King’s promotion, including an aggressive national ad campaign on television,” said Sutton.
“We’re very, very excited with the success of Ribs. It’s a game changer,” said Kevin Anderson, Burger King Corporation’s Director of Core Product Innovation at the time of the LTO. Burger King’s customers wanted great quality food for a fair price, and the BK Ribs offered that. “[It’s] a product you can’t really get in QSR, a product that’s a great value, that’s more of a casual dining kind of menu item.”
The popularity and success of Burger King’s Fire-Grilled Ribs has thrown open the door for others in the foodservice industry to menu fresh pork. Sutton adds, “We anticipate other operators trying to do something similar in the future and we encourage them to reach out to the National Pork Board to assist with the process.”