Inside the A&W test kitchen, a battlefield in the fast food wars
CBC
One of the latest volleys in the multibillion-dollar fast food wars started with a late night on Karan Suri's TikTok.
A&W's director of menu development was scrolling his phone when he came across the "pickle girl" trend that was making the rounds last year, with women (and one very loud and adorable three-year-old) showing their love for preserved cucumbers.
By the next morning, he was mixing up different pickle-based sauces in the burger chain's test kitchen in North Vancouver. Five weeks later, he'd nailed down a recipe that formed the bedrock of last summer's A&W spicy dill burger.
"Our supplier … nailed it in the first go," said Suri, standing in the test kitchen in mid-March, noting that the five weeks from idea to product was a record for him.
While much of the industry's appeal comes from its familiarity, fast food brands also face pressure to shake up their menus in response to growing competition and changing consumer tastes.
Often, this process begins with rolling out a new limited-time offer, which brands hope will generate buzz and, if they're lucky, inspire McRib or pumpkin spice latte levels of devotion.
It's a high stakes game for the $42.6-billion fast food industry.
While fast food joints have fared well amid inflation, the industry's growth is starting to slow while the number of competitors continues to rise, according to the retail analytics firm Circana, and staying relevant is key to staying in the game.
Stepping into the A&W test kitchen is like walking into a supersized version of a fast food kitchen, with about 10 times the equipment. Different restaurants have different grills and fryers, so the space needs an unusual abundance of gear to make sure recipes work the same no matter where they're rolled out.
On a recent visit, the space was meticulously clean and notably aroma-free.
It's here that Suri — who previously worked at luxury hotels in India, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates — along with his team, try to figure out what the next thing is that customers will want to eat. It's a process that's both a science and an art.
Though Suri got his pickle sauce in five weeks, developing recipes can in some cases take years. A Nashville chicken glaze went through 57 different variations before the team hit upon a version that could be mass produced and stay shelf-stable inside a hot restaurant kitchen.
"It needs to be to work in those very, very tough kitchen environments," said David Ioi, Suri's copilot in the test kitchen and a food scientist.
A&W gets reams of data from its forecasters and suppliers about what flavours are popular now and which ones are expected to take off in the years ahead.
Christy Morin says life was never the same in Alberta Avenue after the fires began.
It's small things, like a cigarette or a pair of clean socks, Rachel Montour says, that can go a long way to make you feel more human when you’re out on the street.
Several dozen members of Windsor's Chaldean community and its supporters celebrated in the cold at the corner of Marentette Avenue and Wyandotte Street East Friday, as city officials gave a secondary name to the section of Marentette between Wyandotte and Tuscarora Street: Chaldean Way.
Allison Hill says she tries to make people’s experience at the Thunder Bay Food Bank “as pleasant as possible.”
Two years after a man went missing in Scarborough, Toronto police are renewing the investigation in hopes that the public will bring forward more information.
A musical instrument created in Guelph, Ont., has been thrust onto the international stage — or rather, screen.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.
A man barricaded in a former church in Welland, Ont., was taken into custody early Saturday, nearly 24 hours into a standoff that began over a fence dispute.
Peel police are investigating after a Friday night shooting in Mississauga left one person dead, police said.
Another busy construction season has come to an end in London, and the city is already looking ahead to next spring when a slew of new projects are expected to begin.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.