Editor’s Note: This article is part of Food On Demand’s Summer Series, where the editorial team explores a different topic each month. August’s focus is Tech Lessons, for which one article each week features tech-focused lessons from restaurant industry professionals.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again… and again… and again, for seven full years if necessary.
At least, that’s the approach A&W Restaurants CEO and President Betsy Schmandt said the nation’s oldest franchised restaurant chain took when developing its candidate for the chicken sandwich wars, a deep-fried cultural phenomenon that touched down in the U.S. shortly before the COVID pandemic dramatically spurred online ordering and off-premises channels.
In early August, almost precisely seven years after a saucy social media comment from Popeyes sparked the chicken sandwich c
A&W officially launched its new chicken sandwich offering in mid-August, nearly seven years after the chicken sandwich wars phenomenon began.
raze, the 900-unit burger-and-root-beer chain welcomed a chicken sandwich to its menu that Schmandt said rose to the challenge.
Although Schmandt admitted the timeline to develop a chicken sandwich capable of stacking up against the category leaders did stretch well beyond the typical process for new menu items, she described the yearslong effort as a lesson in persistence.
“It has really taken us this amount of time since the chicken sandwich wars happened to really perfect the A&W crispy chicken sandwich,” she said. “So, we’ve tried it a bunch of different ways, and finally, I think we cracked the code on it because this chicken sandwich is so delicious.”
With off-prem channels representing growing revenue streams for A&W, Schmandt said that travelability was a top-of-mind consideration when developing the new chicken sandwich.
“More and more of our business is coming through third-party delivery or first-party,” she said. …“Carryout is a growing piece of our business as well. People want convenience, and they want that portability—and that’s whether they’re going through the drive-thru and eating on the run, or they want it brought home. That crispy, crunchy outside is really important to deliver.”
Prior to the new crispy chicken offering, which A&W formally introduced this month alongside a deluxe variety and Nashville hot chicken limited-time offer, the Kentucky-based brand used chicken tenders in sandwiches and sliders.
Schmandt said the tenders-in-a-bun approach simply did not compete well enough against other offerings in the market, nor did the standard filet options A&W tested. Thus, the trial-and-error process continued with chicken breast, briefly dabbling with a freezer-to-fryer product before determining it didn’t make the cut. A similar process was followed with the breading technique until a satisfactory result eventually emerged.
Then, A&W put the finalist through a rigorous cycle of internal testing, first in Kentucky and then in Wisconsin. Drawing on data from roughly 20 locations across those states, Schmadt said the new offering quickly generated sales well beyond those of the tender-based sandwiches.
“So, at that time we were seeing double the sales out of this sandwich than we were seeing on our menu item, and since we’ve launched August 3, now we’re three to one,” Schmandt said, noting the brand used its loyalty program, Rooty’s Mug Club, to promote the launch alongside a week-long buy-one-get-one campaign.
Long after the dust settled from the original chicken sandwich war, A&W began preparing its system for the introduction of its new offering in January, gradually rolling it out distribution center by distribution center throughout the first half of the year.
In addition to all of the culinary components and ensuring the new sandwich is well-suited for today’s off-prem-friendly consumers, Schmandt said brand executives worked directly with franchise board members and sent trainers to all of its restaurants to ensure the team members in kitchens of various sizes could confidently and consistently produce the new product.
“Certainly, it doesn’t usually take us that long to come up with new products,” Schmandt said. “There are some great chicken sandwiches out there, and not to disparage our competition, but we really wanted a chicken sandwich that was head and shoulders above what else (was on the market). There was already a hype cycle around this… and we certainly didn’t want a subpar sandwich.”
Although it took years, A&W’s persistence eventually resulted in a sandwich that performed well in test markets and met Schmandt’s standards for the brand’s belated contender in the chicken sandwich wars, even if it came well after the initial hype cycle had died down.
According to data from Technomic’s Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, U.S. chicken chains experienced double-digit growth for five straight years, beginning in 2019 when Popeye’s sly Twitter comment kicked off the chicken sandwich wars. While the category’s momentum has slowed since 2023, that trend did not deter A&W from releasing the menu item any longer.
“This is going to be a permanent addition for us,” Schmandt said. “We really do see this as a new platform of innovation for us, so the crispy chicken sandwich will be on our menu.”
