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TECHNOLOGY ISSUE
Two Years Into Chicken Sandwich Wars, the Battleground Is Still Shifting September saw Chick-fil-A take 38% of digital ordering spend on chicken sandwiches through third-party food delivery apps. By HETAL PANDYA
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he Chicken Sandwich Wars have raged so fiercely and for so long now, there’s even a Wikipedia page about it. Originally started with the launch of Popeyes' chicken sandwich, the finger-licking fray has now seen Burger King join with the launch of their Ch’King Sandwich earlier this year. Burger King will find themselves facing off against some of the biggest names in quick service restaurants, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box, KFC, Chick-Fil-A, and Zaxby’s. According to new national research from the leading source of competitive intelligence and digital ordering insights for restaurants, Edison Trends, chicken specialist Chick-fil-A has a solid hold on the sandwich market. The restaurant garnered 38% of what customers spent on chicken sandwiches through online third-party food delivery apps this September, among the top eight quick service restaurants offering the item. Chick-Fil-A has mostly maintained that top position since April 2020, with the exception of March 2021. The rise of McDonald's to take top place in that month coincided with the release of their Crispy Chicken Sandwich on February 24, 2021. When Popeyes introduced their chicken sandwich on August 12, 2019, their resulting sales took a bite out of Chick-Fil-A and McDonald's. Popeyes had had no chicken sandwich on the menu prior to this. The restaurant’s offering sold out soon after its debut due to “unprecedented demand,” but their slice of the pie began growing again in November 2019, and in January 2020 they took in 23% of the money spent on chicken sandwiches among these brands. By May 2020, spend on the Popeyes sandwich had soared to 365% over that of
its debut month—though their piece of the action had begun to shrink in comparison with other brands. Burger King debuted their Ch'King sandwich varieties (regular, spicy, deluxe, and spicy deluxe) on June 3, 2021. In that month, they grabbed 5% of spend. How does their debut compare to Popeyes’? Looking at the first four months for each, Burger King saw twice the spend on its sandwich that Popeyes did on theirs. It's too early to tell what the long run may hold for Burger King’s offering, spend on which has declined since its introduction. When it comes to what proportion of individual chicken sandwiches were sold by each of the top brands, the picture changes. McDonald's has jousted with Chick-Fil-A since April 2020, with the former mostly maintaining first place. September saw Chick-fil-A pull about even with McDonald's,
with each taking 33-34% of the chicken sandwiches sold among these brands. (The average McDonald’s item in the analysis cost less than the average Chick-fil-A item, accounting for Chick-fil-A seeing the larger share of spend; top chart.) While market share may rise or fall, most brands are growing their chicken sandwich orders. Looking at numbers of sandwiches sold in the first nine months of each year from 2019 to 2021, McDonald's increased their numbers 61% from 2019 to 2020, and 45% from 2020 to 2021; Chick-Fil-A's numbers grew 189% and 43% over those periods. Popeyes was the only restaurant in this analysis whose numbers slipped, dropping 20% between 2020 and 2021. The largest growth from 2020 to 2021 in chicken sandwiches sold was shown by KFC, with a 171% increase.
Hetal Pandya is Co-Founder and VP Marketing at Edison Trends, the nation’s trusted source for restaurant digital ordering research. Edison Trends research is based on a sample of anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from millions of consumers in the United States. Visit https://trends.edison.tech to learn more. 42
WINTER 2022
FLORIDA RESTAUR ANT & LOD GING A S SO CIATION
