Name: McDonald's Popeyes, Chick-Fil-A And The Chicken Sandwich Wars
Uploaded: 2020-04-20T15:02:21.000Z
Duration: 11 min 46 s
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It's two pieces of bread, a piece of fried chicken, dill pickles and a

Modal verbs - B1

squirt of mayo. Who would have thought such a humble sandwich could set

In fast food, Chick-Fil-A has long dominated the chicken sandwich.

This simple sandwich is part of what propelled Chick-Fil-A to its spot as

the third biggest fast-food chain in the U.S.,

Chick-Fil-A's race to the top has scared even McDonald's, whose U.S.

franchisees asked corporate to develop a worthy competitor to

In the summer of 2019, a formidable opponent to Chick-Fil-A emerged — and

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen introduced its crispy chicken sandwich and

The sandwich challenged Chick-Fil-A's dominance in the chicken sandwich

category and fast foods' biggest names got into the battle.

Popeyes sold out of the chicken sandwich in about two weeks.

During that time, analysts say other chicken chains, including

Americans are ordering and eating more chicken now than ever before.

In a highly competitive industry like fast food, brands are racing to

stake their claim. Chains that have long relied on chicken like

Chick-Fil-A and Popeyes are in prime position for victory.

Others, like hamburger-focused McDonald's, have missed out on dollars

One thing is clear: Fast-food customers want chicken sandwiches and the

Now the big chains are duking it out to deliver, despite supply chain

Part of Chick-Fil-A's brand messaging has been that it didn't invent the

chicken, just the chicken sandwich, but American studies professor Psyche

Williams-Forson says people have been eating this type of sandwich as long

as they have been eating bread and poultry.

There's evidence that lots of early colonial households who could afford

the ingredients to make bread and would have any kind of bird, would eat

And of course, on through the centuries, we end up with what we know to be

the sandwich and the chicken sandwich at that.

And competition around the chicken sandwich isn't exactly new either.

Ebony magazine searched black newspaper archives and found ads for the

chicken sandwich, going back to as early as 1936.

Chick-Fil-A's founder S. Truett Cathy invented the chain's original

That sandwich was made of a boneless chicken breast, breaded and fried in

peanut oil, and served on a toasted buttered bun with pickles.

The first Chick-Fil-A opened in 1967 and the chain has been closed on

Despite that, Chick-Fil-A is the third biggest restaurant chain in the

U.S. by system wide sales and reported more than $10 billion in revenue in

2018. For comparison, Popeye's pulled in $3.7

billion in sales in 2018, making it the 25th largest U.S.

chain. When Popeye's parent company, Restaurant Brands International,

quietly discussed a new menu item in its May 2019 Investor Day, it didn't

know that the product's launch would cause such a frenzy.

It was the first time in its nearly 50-year history that Popeyes offered a

chicken sandwich that was available nationwide.

In the past, its menu tended to focus more on bone-in products.

This sandwich is a white meat breast fillet, pan-battered and breaded in a

buttermilk coating served on a brioche bun.

There is one version with regular mayonnaise and another with spicy mayo.

Popeyes rolled out its sandwich on August 12th, 2019.

One week later, this sandwich set off a virtual confrontation between some

Chick-Fil-A tweeted an equation suggesting that its sandwich was the

Popeyes had a simple, but pointed response to Chick-Fil-A.

Y'all good? Their check-in prompted other chicken brands to get into the

conversation. Soon, Wendy's and Shake Shack jumped into the Twitter feud,

They love to see kind of folks going at it and in a fun and competitive

way, of course. This is the reality TV series happening in real time with

real companies in real dollars and real delicious food at stake.

Those tweets set off a social media firestorm and nearly doubled Popeyes

Twitter followers from 100,000 to 180,000.

A marketing group estimated that Popeyes received over $65.1

million dollars in equivalent advertising value for media mentions between

The sandwich's impact was bigger than just raising Popeyes profile with

consumers. It was also a boon to Popeye's bottom line, thanks in part to

the chicken sandwich, sales at stores opened more than a year grew by 9.7

percent in the third quarter of 2019, compared to .5

One analyst estimated that Popeyes sold about a 1,000 chicken sandwiches a

day and that the sandwich accounted for about 30 percent of sales while it

After about two weeks with the chicken sandwich on the menu, Popeyes

Fans started posting pictures of handwritten, sold out signs on Popeyes'

Popeyes was even hit with a lawsuit by an angry customer for selling out

of the sandwich. You saw Popeyes' market share more than double and then

you did see a dip in foot traffic share at Chick-Fil-A, McDonald's, Burger

King and Wendy's. You know that the the actual infamous y'all good tweet

happened just as Wendy's was launching their spicy chicken sandwich and

and just as Burger King was launching the Impossible Whopper nationally.

So it sort of took the steam out of those promotions for for a few short

days. But the positive impact of Popeye Sandwich wasn't limited to just

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McDonald's Popeyes, Chick-Fil-A And The Chicken Sandwich Wars

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