Inside Burger King’s Culinary Innovation Lab

Summary

Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Episode Summary: Inside Burger King’s Culinary Innovation Lab

Date: July 5, 2026
Guests: Alex Hawk (Manager, Culinary Innovation, Burger King), Zach Young (Director of Culinary & Commercialization, Burger King)
Co-Hosts: John, Quinn, Jo Hazen

---

Episode Theme

This episode gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how Burger King’s culinary innovation and commercialization teams work to develop, improve, and scale menu items that millions of people eat daily. Dave Arnold hosts a playful, energetic roundtable with Alex Hawk and Zach Young, revealing the science, logistics, and art behind menu innovation at Burger King. The discussion covers operational challenges, ingredient science, equipment secrets, and even fast-food mythology.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet the Burger King Innovation Team

• Introductions: Alex Hawk and Zach Young explain their roles—developing new food concepts (Alex) and scaling them for nationwide production and delivery (Zach).
• Fun fact: Burger King’s culinary HQ is in Miami, which leads to banter about surviving in tropical climates.
• Memorable Quote:
  “You wouldn't think that flame broiling would come from Florida.” – Dave Arnold [03:11]

---

2. Complexities of Fast-Food Supply Chains

• Recent Challenges: Zach reveals how a major supplier bakery closing caused a massive reroute of Burger King's bread supply chain.
• Just in Time vs. Buffer Stock: High-turnover items (bread, vegetables) have tight delivery schedules; a missed shipment can take items off the menu in that region.
• Fun Burger King Lore: The Whopper Jr. began as a “bun snafu” when a Puerto Rico franchise used smaller, local buns and the item became a hit.
• Notable Quote:
  “If they miss one [delivery], you are definitely in trouble...and that thing’s not on your menu.” – Zach Young [08:59]

---

3. Food Science & Recipe Tweaks

• Brining & Marinades Debate: Hosts discuss flavor delivery in chicken, debunking the myth that marinades don’t work. Zach highlights the importance of protein chemistry and pH in achieving juiciness.
• Sibling Love: Burger King’s relationship with Popeyes—test kitchens are across the hall in Miami.
• Frying Tech: Discussion about oil choices, stability for home vs. industrial frying, and how crispy quality depends on the right blend and recovery times.
• Notable Quote:
  “You can get really good product...if you do it just right, you can get really juicy, flavorful chicken.” – Zach Young [14:35]

---

4. Fast-Food Myths, Tech, and Failures

• Innovations & Disasters: The team jokes about Olestra and “anal leakage” snack food fiascos, and the often odd trajectory of food tech innovation.
• Moldy Whopper Campaign: Not to be mistaken for serving moldy burgers—Burger King highlighted the absence of preservatives.
• Whopper Sr. & Jr. Tidbits: Regional innovation, such as teriyaki versions in Hawaii.
• Mockbuster Cartoons: Detour into the world of bad branded cartoons (King’s Hawaiian, Brazilian “ratatoing” movie).
• Memorable Moment:
  “Man was not meant to live in Miami.” – Alex Hawk [06:46]

---

5. Listener Questions: Ingredient Tech & Sweetener Science

• Stevia & Natural Sweeteners (27:21): Why does stevia still taste bitter/off? Zach explains the difference in palate impact and sweetener “flavor curves,” and why mixing sweeteners usually works best.
• Consumer Habits: Americans want “all or nothing”—ultra-sweet or fully diet, not in-between.
• Classic Coke Debate: Coke vs, Diet Coke vs. Coke Zero—a growing segment of brand loyalty and sweetener fandom.
• Notable Quote:
  “Our consumers want…salad for a week so I can have a piece of chocolate cake, but I don't want half-sugar chocolate cake. Just give me the full chocolate cake.” – Zach Young [30:12]

---

6. R&D: Burger King Menu Innovations

• Biggest/Best Launches (36:08):
  • Zach: The Whopper revamp—re-examining every component (bun, mayo, lettuce, tomato) for quality improvement without alienating nostalgic customers.
    • “Trying to reinvent a classic on your menu…is always really difficult.” [37:43]
  • Alex: Teasing an upcoming “cooking revolution” (unable to give details yet), sharing previous work on “secret menus” at a regional convenience chain (famous for absurd calorie bombs).
• Original Chicken Sandwich: Cited as the most underrated BK item; upcoming improvements teased.

---

7. Lost LTOs, Global Collabs, & The Test Kitchen

• Do they recreate or revive old menu items in the test kitchen? Yes—sometimes meet with international teams to share limited-edition innovations.
• Whopper by You: Brief mention of social media-driven menu customization.
• Notable Quote:
  “We have to design recipes that go out to...almost 20,000 [global] units. And these recipes have to work on several different generations of equipment and be equal quality…” – Dave Arnold [64:43]

---

8. Cool & Uncommon Commercial Kitchen Gear

• Favorite Equipment:
  • CVap (Controlled Vapor Oven): “Vapor controlled technology”—holds food crispy and hot without drying. Developed for fast food, but beloved by chefs.
  • Fascination with microwave hacks: Stories of dangerous DIY kitchen ideas.
  • Water Fryer: Uses a cold water barrier beneath oil to catch breadcrumbs; surprisingly safe and improves oil longevity. (Do NOT try at home!)
  • Massive Automated Freezers:
    • The largest potato freezer Zach visited holds 355 million pounds of fries—enough for every American to grab a pound at once!
    • Advanced automation: fully robotic, oxygen-limited for safety.
  • Frozen Carbonated Beverage Machines: Complex tech for slushy cola; brics and carbonation set by manufacturer, not easy to hack for diet versions.

---

9. Fun, Random Stories & Tangents

• Attempted Edible Tide Pods: Dave’s (aborted) project to make safe edible versions for his son—family wisely intervened.
• Bad product innovations: Bleached Heinz green/purple ketchup and why some trends flop.
• Hidden tech: Why it’s mostly the big commercial toys (CVap, water fryers, robotic freezers) that home cooks should really be jealous of.

---

10. Lightning Round Facts & Rapid Fire

• Favorite product most people missed: The original chicken sandwich, soon to be revamped.
• How many millions of pounds of beef are cooked daily at BK? "Hundreds of thousands"—biggest numbers on the Whopper.
• What kitchen machines do they lack? "Ridiculous microwave hacks" patiently left to the domain of childhood (and dangerous internet videos).

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:50 – Guest introductions; culinary innovation at Burger King
• 07:34 – The supply chain crisis: Bread supplier goes under
• 10:21 – Whopper Jr. origin story
• 13:07 – The science of marinades & brines
• 15:11 – Popeyes sibling info & fryer tech secrets
• 19:11 – Home frying discussion and “chump oil”
• 22:54 – Fast-food innovation failures: Olestra, olestra snacks
• 25:56 – The “Moldy Whopper” experiment and clean-label bread
• 27:32 – Listener Q: Why sweeteners like stevia taste bad
• 36:08 – Favorite launches and underrated BK products
• 43:35 – Commercial kitchen tech: CVap, microwave fever dreams
• 49:08 – Water oil fryers—how they work
• 51:45 – Frozen carbonated beverage machines
• 59:35 – World’s largest potato freezer revealed
• 63:44 – Custom Whopper stories and LTO brainstorming
• 64:43 – Recipe design for 20,000 restaurants and equipment generations

---

Memorable Quotes

• “The dry heat argument is the biggest load of crap…122 degrees is freaking hot no matter what the humidity.”
  – Dave Arnold [05:09]

• “I wonder how much higher the heat transfer coefficient is at Miami humidity levels…”
  – Dave Arnold [05:45]

• “If you have a buffer, extra inventory is extra space, extra money… It’s all the way back. You gotta manage inventory at every level.”
  – Zach Young [09:37]

• “Trying to reinvent a classic on your menu…is always really difficult.”
  – Zach Young [37:43]

• “If your big brother’s figured it out, why can’t you do it?”
  – Dave Arnold (on menu engineering) [15:39]

• “I am, like I said before, on the precipice of revolutionizing a… cooking method. I can’t wait.”
  – Alex Hawk [41:18]

---

Takeaways

• Massive scale requires massive precision: Launching a single product means recalibrating supply chains, equipment, and training for thousands of locations at once.
• Innovation is constant—but nostalgia is powerful: Even tiny tweaks to the Whopper or chicken sandwich involve exhaustive testing and risk upsetting loyal customers.
• The burger world is filled with secrets—some delicious, some ridiculous: From “moldy Whopper” to edible Tide Pods, the boundary of fast-food shame and success is thin.
• Coolest kitchen tech is reserved for industry giants: CVap ovens, water fryers, and hundred-million-pound freezers are the secret backbone of your fast-food meal.

---

A fast, funny, and information-stuffed glimpse into industrial food innovation and the challenges Burger King faces every day—delivered with the technical curiosity and irreverence Dave Arnold fans expect.

---

Listen for

• Behind-the-scenes peeks at menu R&D
• Science and logistics of supply chain management
• Honest confessions about kitchen disasters
• Deep dives on why your Diet Coke doesn’t taste like Coke Zero
• Surprising fast-food lore and irreverent food nerdery

This is a must-listen for curious foodies, restaurant engineers, and anyone who’s ever wondered about the magic (and madness) behind a Whopper.

Transcript

[Grow Therapy Announcer]

Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. Grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US Offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekend. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growththerapy.com acast growth acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

[Text Now Announcer]

Your phone is your lifeline. Calling your kid to say goodnight, waiting on a job callback or just sending a meme to your best friend when it's been that kind of day. Wherever life takes you, the Text now app keeps you connected for free. Get a real phone number, unlimited talk and text and 5G data for your favorite apps, all for $0 a month. No fixed contracts, no hidden fees, no panic when bills pile up. Just phone service that's there when it matters most. Text now. We've got your back. Download Text now in your app store today. Wireless plants require the purchase of a sim card. Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte, paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app download today.

[Dave Arnold]

Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center. New York City. Newsstand Studios joined as usual with John. How you doing?

[John (Co-host)]

Doing great, thanks.

[Dave Arnold]

Great. Got Jo Hazen rocking the panels behind me. What's up? Hey, hey, hey. Welcome.

[Quinn]

Full house.

[Dave Arnold]

Everything's well. We have a full house inside, but we're missing. There's no Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, she's still gallivanting, doing whatever hammering things that she's doing elsewhere. And Jackie Molecules can't make it, but I believe holding down the upper left hand corner of our Continent, just off the edge. We got Quinn. How you doing?

[Quinn]

I'm doing all right.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah?

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

All right.

[Quinn]

I don't know.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, all right. And today's special guest. I'm gonna get on my special schwag, which they did not bring. I had to bring this from my own house.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

All right. Today's special guest. Can I get this? On top of my right. Are Alex Hawk, manager and culinary innovation. Manager of culinary innovation at Burger King out of Miami, Florida, which, by the way, I did not know it was a Florida situation.

[Alex Hawk]

Born, born there, stayed there. It's great.

[Dave Arnold]

You wouldn't think that flame broiling would come from Florida. Wait, and do you go Zach or Zachary? What do you prefer? I know in your chef's jacket, it says Zach.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, Zach.

[Dave Arnold]

All right, all right. I'm the same way. Like when people say David, I'm like, okay.

[Zach Young]

I feel like someone's trying to yell at me when they say Zachary.

[Dave Arnold]

Maybe we'll use it.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, go for it.

[Dave Arnold]

Zach Young, the director of culinary and commercialization at Burger King. A title nobody understands. Right.

[Zach Young]

Accurate.

[Dave Arnold]

So. And by the way, if you're listening live, it means you're a Patreon member. If you want to know how to become a Patreon member, John. Well, first of all, call in your questions to 917-410-1507. That's 917410 1507. And you have an extremely rare opportunity actually here to call in and ask questions about people who literally make food and recipe decisions that millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people will eat. So rather unique opportunity. Call in your questions if you're a Patreon member. And, John, why don't you tell them how they can do that and why they might want to.

[John (Co-host)]

You can do patreon.com cookingissues we got a couple different membership levels there. They all get you access to the discord. Some provide you access to the webcam feed. You get access to listening to the episode before anyone else. Just a whole bunch of other cool things with our partners. Great things like that. So check it out. Patreon.com cookingissues and it's getting hot.

[Dave Arnold]

So, like, I'm still sweating like a dog from my bike ride. Which means I can't put my glasses on yet. Cause they'll fog over. I gotta wait like five, ten minutes before I can read my papers in front of me. You know what I'm saying?

[Alex Hawk]

This feels like a cool spring morning compared to what I wake up to

[Dave Arnold]

in Miami, you know, everybody equilibrates to their own climate.

[Alex Hawk]

Sure.

[Dave Arnold]

You know what I mean? This is why I wish I lived in one of these butt cold places so I can make fun of all the people coming in and complaining about the cold, you know what I mean?

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, yeah. Well, I grew up in Pennsylvania, so I get a little of both.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, I used to visit Phoenix in the summer on the regular back when they used leaded gasoline. When Phoenix was still hardcore polluted. But there wasn't as many people. So it's probably even hotter now.

[Alex Hawk]

But it's a dry heat, so that 110, that's nothing.

[Dave Arnold]

That's so garbage. The dry heat. The dry heat argument is the biggest load of crap that anyone's ever said. Because you know what? Like, sure, an oven's also dry heat. It'll kill you. You know what I mean? Like 122 degrees is freaking hot no matter what the humidity is. It is true that if you come out of a pool in Arizona at night and it's 100 out, you can be who chill as you evaporate as all of the moisture in your body evaporates off. But nah, man, 122 hot on anybody's. Anybody's diet. Any amount of humidity. I'm just gonna say that.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I mean, if we get up to 122 down in Miami though, you'd all be dead.

[Alex Hawk]

It's like a bowl of soup.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh my God. You would literally be stewing. I wonder, you guys might be able to answer this. I have never calculated. I wonder how much higher the heat transfer coefficient is at Miami. Humidity levels gotta be substantially.

[Zach Young]

Well, we'll go put some probes out and find out.

[Dave Arnold]

I would bet, I would bet on the order of 50% more odd.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I mean, you would. It would have to be a lot higher. Like just the amount, I mean, I don't know relative to like when we talk about it in cooking terms, they would have to go look, because your humidity, I mean, it's way higher. Your transfer is going to be higher.

[Dave Arnold]

And also you've lost evaporative cooling. So like.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I mean that's really your biggest issue. I mean, you're not. Nothing is coming off of you. It's just going to stay local.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, I mean, how. You can't, you can't, you can't anything over your body temp at 100 humidity. You can't un hose yourself. You know what I mean? There's no dehumes. You know what I mean?

[Zach Young]

It's not Just doesn't work.

[Dave Arnold]

It's not. Okay.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

It's not how we were intended. It's not the way our bodies are built. We're not, you know, these. We're not extremophiles without the proper suits.

[Alex Hawk]

Man was not meant to live in Miami.

[Dave Arnold]

No, no. I mean, I don't know. We'll see. Don't worry. It'll be underwater soon. Okay, I'm just playing.

[Zach Young]

That'll cool you.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Right on.

[Quinn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Just playing around. All right, so this is the portion of the show where we discuss what happened in the past week. So what do you guys got for us? Oh, what do you guys got? Wait, how long have you been in New York this time?

[Alex Hawk]

Zach was here a little longer. I got in Sunday night.

[John (Co-host)]

Nice.

[Dave Arnold]

So you had some. I mean, what can you say? How about this? What can you say you were working on at work that was interesting that you're allowed to talk about. And by the way, I'm gonna ask you questions, and if you can't answer, you can't answer it because understand, you know, company's company, big company.

[Alex Hawk]

Everything I've worked on this week has not been. Not been in the public eye. So I'll default to Zach.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I got you. I got you on that one. Okay, so this will answer two of your questions. So what do I do in commercialization, that side of our business is really taking whatever was designed as food and then figuring out how to feed millions of people with it. So we had, in this last couple weeks, one of the major bakeries that supports us is unfortunately going out of business. And so we've had to go rework the bakery system to make that work. So we do fresh bread for a lot of our core bakery products. And so we not only have to work out how we're gonna get all that made, we gotta figure out how all those trucks are gonna get rerouted to those stores, because they actually, for a lot of those, deliver them directly to the stores. And those bakeries are really helping manage a lot of that. So it gets really complicated in how you figure that out when you have an issue like that.

[Dave Arnold]

Now, since. Since Burger King's been around since the 50s, like, how much did you guys take on the. Just in time? In other words, for those who don't understand, when you go to a Trader Joe's, if there's even a small blip in the transport chain, it looks like there's been a run on the bank, because they just don't. They don't have anything other than today's skus in their store, basically. So they run out like that. And especially in New York City, where they're trucking in from Jersey and Pennsylvania, if they're like, I don't like the weather. Nope, no groceries for you. That's how it works here. But is Burger King like that just in time, or do you guys give yourself a buffer?

[Zach Young]

Depends on the product. Certain things. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty much getting them multiple times a week, and if they miss one, you are definitely in trouble. And that thing's not on your menu. Things like vegetables, things like bread, things that are really coming in and coming out very quickly because they're the big things that we have on the menu. There are other items that we, you know, any of our frozen items that are snacking or fries or things like that, you know, a little bit more security in those. But even those, like, they're high volume, they go through them quickly. So you can run out of fries just as easily sometimes because you're just ripping through them so fast.

[Dave Arnold]

Right. And then. And also, like, extra inventory is extra space, extra money means, like.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, and it's all the way back because, like, you have the production of it. They're storing it. Then it goes to the distribution centers. They're storing it to some degree. Then it goes to the actual restaurant. They're storing it to some degree. So. And each of those levels, you really got to manage where you have inventory. So, like, if you have something that takes off, it'll deplete through the restaurant, and then it may deplete through the distribution center really quickly. And now this whole supply chain is at risk because you're not just about, like, getting it to the restaurant. You're about all the way back to the manufacturer, getting it to where it needs to be in a DC to then get it to the restaurant. And you'll be moving stuff all over the place. We'll have issues sometimes where, like, certain areas are doing really, really well, Something takes off, and then we're even just moving around D.C. to D.C. because something's really happening in a region. We gotta move things around.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Speaking of, I was told by the Internet that the Whopper Jr. Was invented by a bun snafu.

[Zach Young]

By a bun snafu. Yeah, that may be true.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. I was told what the story on the Internets is, that they opened a franchise in Puerto Rico, and the buns didn't make it in time for the opening. And so the franchisee bought local buns that were smaller, and people Liked it. And Burger King national was like, you know what?

[Quinn]

Okay, we're up.

[Alex Hawk]

And chicken.

[Zach Young]

Most of that story is definitely true, I can tell you that, because Puerto Rico is. All our franchises are great. Puerto Rico is a really special little group down there, and they own all the restaurants in Puerto Rico, and they are just a great group that really cares a lot about what they're doing down there, and they expand some things in some really fun ways. And they still baked buns on in, like, in Puerto Rico. That's where their buns come from directly, like. And all their buns today come from there. So it's pretty cool. Little. Little world down there. And they've. They've been really fun to work with as kind of their own little microcosm of. Of little innovation that they like to do.

[Dave Arnold]

I still have never made it to Puerto Rico. You know why? Stupid. That's why it's great.

[Zach Young]

Puerto Rico's awesome.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, no, that's. That's what everyone tells me. Yeah, they tell me I got. You know, like, they. Everyone tells me all the places I have to go, all the foods I have to eat, and. And here I am. Dumb. John, what do you got? Anything from Restaurant world over the past week? You look like I just. The look on your.

[Quinn]

No.

[John (Co-host)]

I don't know. It's like, I'm always trying to think of this, but, you know, it's hard to think of something when I'm just really expediting and working the past. Like, I'm never working on much, you know, in a sense, like, I help do some minor prep. I guess we just, like, tweaked the chicken brine recipe a little bit, added a little habanero vinegar into it. So we. One of our signature dishes is this Peri Peri chicken, inspired by Nando's out in the uk, where India grew up. And, yeah, it's great. So we've just been thinking of ways to keep improving it, and that was one of them. And it seems to be going over well. So.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

You know, everyone says, and this is. Sorry, this is an aside. I won't spend too long on it, but everyone's like, meh, meh, meh. Marinades don't matter because it's just on the surface. But you know what? There's a lot of flavor pickup on the surface, and you eat that way. And when you're cooking or in chicken, especially if you beat the hell out of it or if you needle it, I mean, like, all of these things can affect what's going On. So I think people poo poo. People run a study where they dip a chicken in. First of all, they always choose something that doesn't draw well. They choose an object that doesn't have a lot of interconnected stuff that doesn't draw, and then they draw conclusions way beyond what they've tested that marinades actually don't work. And I'm here to tell you, like, yeah, sure, course. You know what I mean? What do you guys think?

[Zach Young]

Oh, man, I could. We could spend an hour talking about vacuum lanes. So, like, I would say definitely when you're talking about, like, trying to get the flavor in there, you get into. You know, a lot of those molecules are bigger and they're just gonna. They will stay to some degree on the surface unless you inject them or do something like that. Or if you're doing some, like, chopped informed item, like a nugget or whatnot. As far as, like, getting, like, moisture into your chicken, though, there's a lot you can do in a brine. There's a lot, like, chemically that you can do. The basic protein chemistry that's going on in any meat, but certainly in poultry, there's ways to make much juicier chicken if you really know what you're doing there from a marinade perspective.

[Dave Arnold]

And, like, are you a phosphate man?

[Zach Young]

You don't need to use phosphate either. So, like, when you get down to what that is, it's just really playing with ph. And so, like, when you go into more of a vinegar brine, you're typically going the opposite direction. There's a way you can go that way as well. But, yeah, you're trying to buffer to the right ph level to then basically let those proteins hold on to more water is essentially what's happening. You're getting more binding sites essentially there for the water. And you'd say, okay, well, now you're just adding water to my chicken. Whatever. Sort of true. But then if you are doing the right things there, you can make it so that that water is evaporating off through the cook, and you're back to really juicy, really flavorful chicken. And things like salt will actually penetrate in there. So if you do the right salt, you do the right war otter, you do those things, you can actually get to, like, really juicy, flavorful chicken. You can't go too far. But if you do it just right, you can get really good product.

[Dave Arnold]

Speaking of chicken, yesterday I learned that you guys are siblings to Popeyes.

[Zach Young]

We are. We are Popeyes.

[Dave Arnold]

Good chicken.

[Alex Hawk]

Great chicken.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Their test kitchen is right across the hall. I'm sneaking over there and.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Stealing some chicken steaks.

[Dave Arnold]

What kind of fryers? What kind of fry? Are they ambient? Are they ambient fryers? They're not pressure, are they? Are they pressure? Are you allowed to talk about this?

[Zach Young]

Don't tell me. Now we're getting into secrets that I know for lots of other reasons, too. I don't know if we can say what that is. It wouldn't be hard to find out if you were really interested, and I think in the Internet you could find that out.

[Dave Arnold]

But I need you to go across the hall and ask them this question. So Burger King, very smartly, is like, some people can't choose between onion rings and french fries. And so you can get halfsies.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

On Popeyes. On their website, you can't say split the damn thing between spicy and not spicy, because I have people that don't want the spicy chicken. And this is what we in the trade refer to as stupid.

[Zach Young]

They would refer to it as complicated. But yeah, I mean, I mean, you just get down to like in any

[Dave Arnold]

of these, if your big brothers figured it out, why can't you do it?

[Zach Young]

No, you know, I mean, we're great. I agree with you, but no, I mean, it's difficult, right? Like any of these things, they're doing a much harder thing in like hand breading chicken and hand frying and all those things. Like, that is very complicated. And so the more complexity add in there, you just got to look at it and say, what's the payoff for that? So, like, yes, could we do that type of thing? You could, but most of the consumers that want that are probably ordering enough that they'll just do two orders of that thing. So now if you offer that now you've actually just cut into your total sales because that person was going to buy both. And like, in the fried chicken game, there's plenty of people that like hot fried chicken, and there's plenty of people that like to over order it and eat cold fried chicken the next day. So, like, you get. You've already built a relationship with your customer in that way. You can unbuild it in those ways and modify it. But then you really got to know that you aren't just like undercutting your own business and doing that. And so, like, in our world, we do a bunch of analytics to figure out, like, what is a consumer really wanting there? And then we'll write a test, like, for that type of thing, we would go pick Up a market and just say, hey, okay, let's, let's do this. Let's see how operationally complex it is, and then let's go see if, like, sales actually increase. If they do, great, throw it on the menu. But if they don't, like now you've undercut your own business and made it more complicated. So now everyone's getting a worse experience that you're making less money on. It's like, that's not what you want.

[Dave Arnold]

Correct. You said hand breaded. They don't bread in store, do they?

[Zach Young]

Oh, yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

I would love to see their breading line.

[Alex Hawk]

Also, we can't talk about the fryer, but the frying medium.

[Zach Young]

Oh, yeah. I mean, they.

[Alex Hawk]

Excellent choice.

[Dave Arnold]

Look, here's something. I'm just gonna say this. Anyone who's buying just chump oil at the supermarket.

[Zach Young]

Chump oil.

[Dave Arnold]

It's like, what, man?

[Zach Young]

We could go into oil too. What's chump oil in your mind?

[Dave Arnold]

Regular people oil that's not stabilized for frying. You know what I mean? Although, interestingly, I don't know much about it. But the Wesson Corporation has started selling a fry based a fry, specifically fry for consumers. And the issue with it, I think from a sales perspective is that the average consumer my age, which there's five of us left, they're used to certain specific oils being terrible at frying. Soy canola because of the off flavors, the fish flavors you can get. But the modern ones don't have these problems because they've had the fatty acids from them that would make those fishy off aromas removed. They've been stabilized for frying. And so I think people get afraid. Well, unless you're afraid of it for a health reason. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about organoleptically, you know, if you're afraid of a particular oil based on its provenance, it's like you kind of have to erase that when you're looking at fry oils and the way they're formulated. So the average person just doesn't have the ability to go buy good fry oil at their supermarket, you know?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, not at a supermarket, but I feel like most people that are frying, like go to a restaurant depot or something, go somewhere where they do sell that kind of thing and go grab some.

[Dave Arnold]

It's just so much better.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I mean, it is. You're right. Like the, the amount of technology that's gone into making those fryer oils better is, Is huge. And they've done a lot of things to balance them. And they've done a lot of things to blend them properly. And it's not always just a canola or a corn or, you know, whatever. Whatever your thing's going to be having the right mix and having the right, you know, profile you're looking for from like longevity versus flavor versus, you know, overall heat that you're going for. You know, if you're in lower temp ranges, you want a different thing for.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. But nobody is at home. Everyone's. Everyone at home.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Is jacking their freaking temperature because they. And then like because they can't recover.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

You know, I mean.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

And I know a guy who can recover.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

That's a fry.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, you know, Jimmy rig one. Yeah. I'm definitely not allowed to recommend that people hot rod their home fryers to 3,000 watts.

[Zach Young]

Just light a fire underneath, it'll be fine.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, but then, you know, you have the coles. Look, I'm saying it's good. Frying at home is relatively challenging. Fast frying now, I think like this is why like old school, like old school frying where. Like old school chicken frying, which is a lot longer at a lower temperature.

[Zach Young]

More pan frying. Like shallow pan frying.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. You can do a good job at home.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

But like real, real. And here's the thing.

[Alex Hawk]

It's tough with french fries.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Young]

Well, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

This is why my first fryer that I owned, I mean, I worked at a fry station when I was in high school, college. And I was like, oh my God. And that's when I learned that the like the 40 to 50, 60 pound fryer range is where everyone should be. You know what I mean? But I was given a fry daddy and I was like, this makes three great french fries. Three.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, that's. You put any more, it's overloaded.

[Dave Arnold]

But everyone wants to overload because, you know, what are they gonna do? Have efficiency. Yeah. I have a. I think it's wherever I forget. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna record it soon. I bought a. They made in the 70s, a potato chip factory, quote, unquote. And it automatically cuts.

[Zach Young]

Oh like a spiralizer and then drops it.

[Dave Arnold]

It has like a little Cuisinart blade and a screw feed and a plunger. And you put. Has to be a small potato. So it's like 70 size potatoes. Although not baking potatoes.

[Alex Hawk]

Small.

[Dave Arnold]

So I made a pre cutter. I made a cookie cutter pre cut. So you drop it in and it goes meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. There's a cat in there. It shaves off. Yeah, it shaves off. The cat inside. The high temp cat shaves off three or four potatoes slightly into this, like, tiny thing of oil. And it's got an auto skimmer, so it flips it over and then scrapes it out of the oil. And so you could get a bag of potato chips in three hours. You have to sit there and look at. It's the dumbest. I love it. I'm going to pid control it because the thermal control is not the best. But when it's operating at. Did you hear. And I know this is not a big deal for you guys, but did you hear that they genetically engineered a potato that doesn't oxidize when you cut it?

[Quinn]

No.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

I mean, don't have to soak it.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. But, like, what? What? I feel like in any time you do that type of thing, I feel like you have some other big issue, like. Oh, yeah, it does that also, though.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, yeah. We all die. It's fine, though.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. It's also, you know, red, and it tastes terrible. But what.

[Dave Arnold]

You know, it looked fantastic on Instagram. I have to say, the. I mean, you know, that's a big problem. You know, I lose five minutes of my life, but my potatoes don't brown sale.

[Zach Young]

It does still taste good. I mean, when you get into that, like, so much, if you can do that and no other attributes change. Good job.

[Dave Arnold]

I said it on air. Even though they don't pay us a dime. The Honey Glow pineapple, they did a good job. They allowed it to ripen, but it doesn't get soft. They taste good. It's a good product. So I buy it. I buy exclusively that for the bar.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. If you can do, like, if that's what they've done, awesome. But even if that's where they're at now, that just means that it's possible. And they'll figure out how to make it work later, typically. Unless it's, like, a fundamental chemistry thing that just can't change.

[Dave Arnold]

Right. There was that tomato that they supposedly made that was hard, but then nobody liked it. Remember, there was a tomato that supposedly developed the ripe flavors but didn't turn to mush. This was, like, a decade ago, and it didn't work.

[Alex Hawk]

Yeah, I know some tomako. That's my personal.

[Dave Arnold]

That's a good Simpsons reference. I appreciate that.

[Alex Hawk]

Are we talking about, like, olestra? Olene.

[Dave Arnold]

I love that.

[Alex Hawk]

Really kind of what you.

[Dave Arnold]

Did you guys do that?

[Alex Hawk]

No, we didn't. Oh, God.

[Quinn]

No.

[Dave Arnold]

Were you owned by PG and E back in the day or whatever it is? No, that's Pacific Gas. It's Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble, Yeah.

[Zach Young]

No, but things like that. Like, those are the unsuccessful versions, right? Like, there's plenty of.

[Dave Arnold]

I would say that commercially. Commercially unsuccessful. Because first of all, who's like, you know what we should call this?

[Text Now Announcer]

Wow.

[Dave Arnold]

You know what I mean? So dumb. And then on top of it, they're like, whoa. You can only put it in snack foods. It cannot go into anything. Anything that's actually consumed for nutrition. And people are like, what? And then, like, it got people, like, the whole anal leakage thing.

[Monica Reinagle]

Wow.

[Zach Young]

Just not good. I love that label, you know?

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. You know, it's like that was the. That's what became ICP later, right? It's all the Juggalos. And then, like, best part of.

[Quinn]

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

[Dave Arnold]

But that was. It's a myth. Because what happened is, is they. I mean, not to get too down into it.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, we're in there, Dave. We're already there.

[Dave Arnold]

My prediction in the 90s was a chamber pot in every seat. But no, seriously, once they figured out how hydrogenate, they took that thing out. Now, there was, for a while, a diet pill that basically turned your whole body into olestra. Do you remember this one? It was called a lie. And I tested it, and what it did is it stopped your ability to like, of your intestines to absorb and break down fats. And what that meant is, if you ate liquid fat. Boop, boop, boop, boop. You know, I don't think it made

[Zach Young]

any of those noises on the way out.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

Or you have a weird.

[Alex Hawk]

It more sounded like somebody microwaving quarters.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Anyways, I don't know how the hell we got on this. This is a mistake. All right?

[Zach Young]

We do the full food experience all the way.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, that was. You know, the Museum of Food and Drink was going to do Farm to toilet. No one's done it yet.

[Zach Young]

That's. Hey, y. Yeah. We're missing out.

[Dave Arnold]

Circle, circle life.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

Gets back to fertile life.

[Alex Hawk]

Nose to tail. Plus.

[Zach Young]

I don't know why we missed that part.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Dumb, Dumb. You guys did the Moldy Whopper? Why didn't you finish your job, dude? We should have moldy. By the way, Moldy Whopper is not that they're serving a Moldy Whopper. They were just proving that they didn't jack it with so many preservatives that it would not mold. You can compost a Whopper we fight

[Zach Young]

mold in our Whoppers regularly. We don't put those in there. We do have clean label bread.

[Alex Hawk]

We have a very hearty, clean label.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, like, we're surprisingly clean label too. Like, it's. It is difficult to get some of these products all the places we need them. And that's why, like fresh bread is really hard. Like a lot of people are unfrozen. You know, most of ours is not. We here and there. We have to do it just because, like getting bread to Hawaii is not exactly the easiest thing to do when you have a bakery out there.

[Dave Arnold]

But do you do a collab with Hawaii with Kingswine?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, no, we. We do do special things. Like we do a teriyaki Whopper out there.

[Dave Arnold]

They made an awful cartoon. Kings Hawaiian made an absolutely awful, like, video. Like worse than the. Have you seen any of the Brazilian mockbusters?

[Zach Young]

No, but they sound great.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, no, they're real bad. Like my favorite one, which everyone needs to go watch is for about five minutes. Turn it off just so you can say ratatoing. It's a ratatouille ripoff. And it's Chef Marcel Toying is the rat chef. And yeah, it's a mockbuster. It's a thing. They have a cars ripoff, but I forget what it's called. They have an up ripoff that's called like Flyaway Balloon man or something like this. Classics, Absolutely.

[Text Now Announcer]

Classics.

[Alex Hawk]

True classics.

[Dave Arnold]

Kings Hawaiian has maybe the most unwatchable cartoon. There's a religious Finding Nemo that is possibly as bad as the King's Hawaiian, which, by the way, I like their product. This is no shade on the rolls.

[Alex Hawk]

Sure.

[Zach Young]

Just stick to the roles.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, stick to the roles. Don't do an animated.

[Zach Young]

Know your role. Like there's a bunch of.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So know your role. Let's get some questions for you guys from the Patreon people. Teddy D writes in. As someone who wants to consume. This is, you know, you do beverage. Sure, yeah. As someone who wants to consume less sugar but won't give up on taste and wants something more with Scare quote natural. Why does stevia fall short today? Is it the lingering bitterness.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Yes. Or the way it behaves in high concentration formats like syrups? And is anyone close to solving that in an industrial manner?

[Alex Hawk]

This may be a beverage question, but this gets down to an ingredient question. Bring it back to talk to science brain over here.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I mean, it's two things. It's the way the sugar hits your palate too. So if you think about it, what fructose, glucose, sucrose, they all kind of have a different flavor curve. So like, fructose kind of like really hits your palate hard and then kind of peters off. You know, sucrose combination of that and glucose and it just kind of wafts over your palate. A lot of the artificial sweeteners, like, they just hit you really hard up front. You know, they're very, very concentrate. They're not concentrated. They're very, very powerful and very low concentrations. So they don't hit that. Right. And then you have to put a lot of other things in there to ultimately get it to wash over your palate properly. So then we have to put in thickeners and different things because, like, sugar just naturally will thicken it up to the viscosity that you want. It'll give you the body that you want. It'll give you all the things that you kind of want. And I say want this we're used to. Right. Like people like diet soda. People like whatever. That's what they're into in stevia. It's. It's the way that it hits, it's the way that it lingers. It's the way that kind of bitter off note, whatever you really want to call it.

[Dave Arnold]

Poison.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. I mean, hits your palate and it goes back to like, if you drink a bunch of it, I bet that you're okay with it. I don't like it because, you know, I grew up with sugar and then did diet sodas and diet sodas hit my palate the way I wanted them to. Now, like, I'm to the point where like a. A normal sugar or if you go like a high fructose corn syrup or like an actual like classic Coke or something, are so sugary to me that I don't love them. Like, they're too syrupy to me because I drink a lot of diet soda.

[Alex Hawk]

Has any volume that we drink diet soda in that test case?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, it's a lot.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Because frightening. If you're hydrating with a soda, gotta be diet for sure.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. And that's. That's what we end up doing.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Quinn]

And.

[Zach Young]

And you know, to the other point of that, are we close to a solution? Not like there's not like one on the horizon. It's like, oh, we're about to get there on this. There are lots of other ways that we try to do that and there's lots of tricks that we try to play of like how can we make your palate Feel that. And a lot of the answers are like, hey, you know, don't go all the way to zero. You know, put a little bit of fructose in there, put a little bit of sucrose in it. Put a little bit of a real sweetener in there. That'll get you over, like, some of the rough patches. Because, like, in any food, like, there's good and there's bad, and you try to just get this right wave of all the good hits your palate correctly, and the bad just kind of washes out. Right? That's. If you do that right in sweeteners, you can kind of balance it out. It's just kind of tricky to always hit that.

[Dave Arnold]

And then they also shotgun them, right? They add, like, a bunch of them to try to, like, not have too much of any one. Nasty.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. And then you get into this place of, like, it's. It's zero or a thousand, like no one wants. You know, a lot of people have tried, like, the Dr. Pepper tens and those things where it's like, we put a little bit in there. It's a little more balance, whatever. And I think they were. But then no one wanted them because it was like, I want nothing or I want everything.

[Dave Arnold]

Have you met us?

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

As a people.

[Zach Young]

No. It's the argument I make when we try to do these, like, in between things, it's like, look, especially in America, our consumers want, like, I will eat salad for a week, so I can have a piece of chocolate cake, but I don't want half sugar chocolate cake. Like, just give me the full chocolate cake.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

That's what I want.

[Dave Arnold]

Although, what would a chocolate salad be like?

[Zach Young]

I don't know. We're gonna find out now.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, on that. On soda, something you said, like, stuck with me is, like, if you get used to it, you get used to anything. I grew up pre. I grew up on freaking saccharin. You know what I mean? And when you go back to it, it's nasty. The only thing that saccharin remained in after NutraSweet became a thing was tonic water, because the lingering bitterness of saccharin meant that they could use less quinine.

[Zach Young]

Actually, it worked, right? And you still get some pieces of it here and there in little packets or whatever, but it just doesn't show up that much anymore.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, no. And then I just missed the cyclamates. Everyone said that cyclimates was real good, which was the one that got the first artificial sweetener cancer scare. And so cyclamates got banned and saccharin came in. And then I came in kind of the. The tab generation in the 70s, you

[Zach Young]

know what I mean? You can tell how important this is because you have literally Die Hards for classic Coke, current Coke, Coke Zero, and Diet Coke. And each of those are essentially. I mean, they're the same thing. Trying to hit the same thing. And they all got there a different

[Dave Arnold]

way, and they're all wrong. Except the Diet Coke people.

[Alex Hawk]

I do have an argument with my wife constantly.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

I'm a big Coke Zero guy.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

I'm not used to. I'm not on it. Like, Diet Coke for me is like, if I want. Boom.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. Like you. If you had drank stevia, would like it. That's what I'm hearing. Oh, man.

[Alex Hawk]

Diet Coke has a higher caffeine content, too, than Coke Zero.

[Dave Arnold]

Diet Coke. Did they move. Are they still NutraSweet or did they move to a Splenda formulation on that?

[Zach Young]

I don't. You know, I'd have to look. I don't remember.

[Dave Arnold]

It's been a while.

[Zach Young]

They're very protective of it. Right. Like, one where they don't want to change it because it is just so well established of, like, that consumer wants that.

[Quinn]

Right.

[Alex Hawk]

Because it was originally a Coke Zero and then it switched to a technically Coke Zero sugar.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

They're not the same thing.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

And I don't switch ingredients when they change the name.

[Zach Young]

I didn't follow it closely enough to know the history of where they actually landed there.

[Alex Hawk]

There's also a green version of the Coke.

[Zach Young]

That's the stevia version, I think.

[Dave Arnold]

Are you. Are you talking about the. The Heinz Green Squirt Blast?

[Zach Young]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Easy Squirt Blasters.

[Alex Hawk]

Purple, green, all those things. Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

How did they get the. Do any of you actually know how? I looked it up once. How did they get the color out of the ketchup so that they could cover it over with other color? And what did it look like when

[Zach Young]

they went green and purple and all?

[Dave Arnold]

Because I heard that they bleached out. They somehow oxidized and bleached out the lycopene and then jacked it with color.

[Zach Young]

I don't know if that's true. I mean, I think there would be. There's definitely things you could do there, I guess. I don't know. I just always assumed they had just thrown a. A whole bunch of artificial color in there.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

To the point you can almost taste it.

[Dave Arnold]

I mean, lycopene's pretty intense.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, It's. It would Be difficult. I mean, you could. I don't even know if you'd go over it. Like, then you get into weird color stuff where, like, can you whiten it out with like, a titanium dioxide? And then, you know, now you're in like a blank palette and then you can go over that. I don't know that that would work. Yeah, I don't know how those fight.

[Dave Arnold]

Anyone that can hear us, let us know how to do it, because I'm going to make. I'm going to make Heinz clear.

[Zach Young]

I mean, clear.

[Alex Hawk]

Crystal hines.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, Crystal Heinz.

[Alex Hawk]

I think it would have almost.

[Zach Young]

Cause you could like, get the essence. That would be a little, like, the body of. It would be hard. But I think you could actually get closer to like a clear Heinz than you would think.

[Alex Hawk]

It did have a much different texture.

[Zach Young]

You'd have to make it really weird, though.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, I missed that whole. Cause, you know, I didn't have kids yet, so I missed the whole.

[Alex Hawk]

You didn't have an excuse to eat it.

[Dave Arnold]

No, no. I was like. I was like, you know, go to the ketchup. Ketchup wasn't broke. I didn't need it fixed.

[Zach Young]

Go to the cake ingredient aisle and get you some artificial color.

[Dave Arnold]

I bought a bunch of titanium dioxide a couple years ago because Dax wanted to make actual edible Tide pods. And so, like, you know, I figured it out.

[Alex Hawk]

Wait, the regular ones aren't exactly.

[Dave Arnold]

The Internet is lamberting whenever I bring Tide into the house. Snack time. But like, yeah, I was gonna make, you know, like, edible sheets and like, mold em out and then. And so, like, I.

[Zach Young]

What precedent are you setting over there?

[Dave Arnold]

Well, exactly. My wife saw the bag, titanium dioxide, and I started, like, getting ready to 3D print the molds and stuff to cast the sheets and everything. And she's like, A, like, you should be making money instead of this. And B, what the hell? You're trying to encourage people to eat things that look like Tide pods. This is two kinds of bad ideas. And I've only looked at it for 10 seconds. I'm sure there are more.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, I was like.

[Alex Hawk]

And it won't even clean the laundry.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah. So I was like, yeah, fair, fair. So I never made them, but if anyone's listening, make them.

[Zach Young]

Make them.

[Dave Arnold]

Send them in. I'll eat them.

[Zach Young]

They just send you an actual Tide pod and eat it.

[Dave Arnold]

I mean, hopefully. Hopefully the challenge culture is over. Is the challenge culture over?

[Zach Young]

I don't know. I just like the idea of sending you like 10 and it's like the. We just keep one as a regular one.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

And you guys just eat one each other episode and see who loses. Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Tide pod roulette. Yeah. Not a good idea. All right. Okay, another question in from not so Serena. Now, when you answer, she's a professional food formula. I forget who she's working for now, but she's in the biz. Naz. Okay, so for Zach and Alex, what is your favorite product, launch you've done at Burger King or otherwise in your career? And as an add on, what's an item you've worked on? And we talked a similar thing yesterday before I had seen this question. What's an item you've worked on that you think is underrated and. Or wish people knew more about? And tell me why you love those things.

[Zach Young]

I know both of mine well. There's a million things I've been around in different parts of this industry, and there's lots of things I've got to work on that I probably can't talk about. But in Burger King world, the big one for me over the last year was the Whopper. We redid the Whopper. We went through and picked apart all the ingredients and said, like, is this the best tomato? Is this the best mayo? Is this the best lettuce? Is this the best bun? We figured out the things that we thought would really move the needle, and. And it's really difficult with something like that because it's super nostalgic. People have a real relationship with it, and they really love it for a lot of different reasons. So you can't even if you thought, like, oh, we could go to some, like, crazy, you know, let's go to a brioche or let's go to some other, you know, crazy bread. Really difficult to do that because, you know, you're going to really alienate a lot of your customer base. So we had to figure out how you make it all better and how you bring in new consumers and really celebrate what the food is, make it better, make the people that get it today still like it and like it better, and then make new consumers really interested in it. So it's like a really complicated mix, which I think anyone that has, like, a really. Like, you were talking about chicken earlier, like, trying to reinvent a classic on your menu, like, that is always really difficult. So. So that was really fun to go do. And then because it's so big, it's like, everything had to be perfect. So, you know, I was talking about bakeries. We have over 30 different bakeries around the US that support our system and so had to go around all those bakeries and go work with all these bakers and all these teams to go perfectly make our bread in every single one of these bakeries and then do the same thing for mayo and do the same thing for. You know, we were originally playing around with the patty. We were originally playing around with the lettuce and the tomatoes, too.

[Dave Arnold]

Playing around with lettuce. Hold on. It's gotta be iceberg, right? Is there a different answer?

[Zach Young]

No, but. So there's so many, like, layers to that, though. Like, where is it made? Is it made in a greenhouse? Is it made in these different fields? How are we processing it? Like, are we washing? Are we doing it back a house? Are we cutting it ourselves? Are we having someone else cut it for us?

[Dave Arnold]

Are you shred or leaf?

[Zach Young]

We're more of a not like a shred. We're like a chop is what I would call it. But then you get down into the depths of that of, like, what is the right way to do that and to deliver consistency. Because we could bring it back in house, which we used to do for everything. We still do it in some of our stores. But then you have. You got to wash it, and you got to chop it, and you got to have consistency in that and all the different ways you do it. Are you doing it by hand? Are you doing a chopper that, you know, is a little more automated?

[Dave Arnold]

Get to the chopper.

[Zach Young]

Get to the chopper. Yeah, and then we do that. And so, like, in any of those, we go and explore that whole thing and say, is this worth it? Right? Like, let's say we can make, you know, we've looked at really good leaf lettuces and said, like, this would be amazing. And then you go look at, like, supply and say, like, yeah, this would be amazing for, like, two months until we ran out of supply.

[Dave Arnold]

Also, you know what's really good on a burger? Iceberg lettuce.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, exactly. And it holds up. Like, those are the things you come back to is, like, you find out pretty quickly, like, no, that's just not the right thing, but versus, like, a tomato where, you know, I think a lot of people know what a good tomato and a bad tomato is. And then you can really talk about, like, where it's picked, when it's picked, what regions we're getting it from, what sizes we're specking in. So it fits on the burger, right? And then we have two sizes of burgers. So, like, does it fit on the whopper? Well, does it fit on the Whopper Jr. Well, does it fit on all of our builds? Well, you know, our chicken sandwiches, any of that stuff. So then you get into a lot of depth of like, you know, in tomato, it's like, what's too ripe? What's not ripe enough? How do I get it perfect in the restaurant every time? Because if it's too ripe, it's not going to slice. It's not ripe enough, doesn't taste very good. So, like, that balance is always really difficult. And then, like, the hidden gem on our menu, I think, is the. We were talking about it earlier, actually. The original chicken sandwich, I think is like the hidden gem. And it is not now, but will in the future be probably my biggest. Just an industry, honestly, one of my favorite things to have worked on because we're, we're elevating kind of everything on our menu.

[Dave Arnold]

It's the broiled one, the one that was original, the BK broiler or different.

[Zach Young]

No, this is the chicken sandwich. This is the, this is the. Just a fried long boy. Yeah, the long long chicken for international folks.

[Dave Arnold]

But the original chicken sandwich, is that a cannibalistic reference?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, that's it. No, but it's, it is the, you know, it's our classic longer chicken sandwich. And it, it's one that's been on our menu for a very long time. And no one's really updated because it's such a nostalgic thing. And so, like, similarly, trying to elevate something like that is really difficult because you can't go too far away from what makes it great. But it's, you know, people haven't really touched it in 30, 40 years now. And so from my background, anyway, it was one to really go tackle and say, like, well, let's go look at it. We did it with Whopper. This is no bigger than that is like, can we go make this better? And so, you know, you guys will see for us, you know, the end of this year and beginning of next year and then on beyond that, like, we're doing a lot of. Of generations of the next elevation of our core menu and the next time that we take a look at something and then we're going to make it better. We're going to make it better. We're going to make it better. So we're going to keep doing that. We have a lot of the next chapters already sketched out and working through. So there'll be some stuff at the end of this year, and there'll be some more stuff at the beginning of next Year.

[Dave Arnold]

What you got for me?

[Alex Hawk]

So I'm one year into my time at Burger King, so I have yet to launch anything yet. We're about to turn the faucet on, though. I just can't talk about any of that stuff till it launches. If this was three to six months from now, man, I would have a lot. In fact, I am, like I said before, on the precipice of revolutionizing a. Oh, man. A cooking method.

[Zach Young]

Oh, that'd be great.

[Alex Hawk]

I can't wait.

[Dave Arnold]

Way to tease.

[Alex Hawk]

It's just not out yet. In my last role, Mid Atlantic Sea store chain based out of western Pennsylvania.

[Zach Young]

You do the math.

[Alex Hawk]

You do the math. Not hard to figure out. I helped develop a secret menu. We had touchscreen ordering. There was a secret key hidden on the menu. They said, sky's the limit. Develop whatever you want. I came up with six different ideas, all Hamachi crudo.

[Dave Arnold]

That's a weird.

[Alex Hawk]

These are all excellent. Like a French toast stick platter. So deep fried French toast sticks covered in cheese, sausage and syrup. Excellent Mac and cheeseburger. A taco dia, which was a quesadilla with crunchy tacos in it. All these things.

[Zach Young]

And he's proud of that.

[Alex Hawk]

I'm proud. Well, this is what he. It was very fun. And then because they said the sky's the limits, I really kind of went for it. We ran them through our calorie calculator at some point while they were in test and said, geez, you know what, guys? I don't think we're gonna launch these.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, man.

[Alex Hawk]

We might be getting a call from Men's Health magazine who releases a list every year of the unhealthiest fast food items. And they're like, all six of these would be at the top of that list. So that didn't launch.

[Zach Young]

You redefined the whole list.

[Alex Hawk]

So I don't know if maybe that's not my pr, but that was by far the most fun thing that I've ever done.

[Dave Arnold]

Did you guys ever, in the test kitchen, going to launches that current Burger King doesn't make anymore?

[Quinn]

Or were.

[Dave Arnold]

What do they call it? The limited time, limited LTOs. LTOs.

[Zach Young]

Limited time offer.

[Dave Arnold]

Do you recreate some of the old ltos in the test kitchen?

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Have you done the Windows 7 burger?

[Zach Young]

No. No, we do that, and then we meet with our international counterparts, too. And we just did this about a month ago. Where we'll all get together, is kind of global mix and look at stuff that we're doing around the globe too. So they can kind of see what we're working on because we tend to be working on a lot of the core plus. And then we get to see some fun things from around the globe. Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

All right. From. I think you're supposed to say Jameson, but it's JAM five on. I think it's supposed to be okay. Yeah. JAMA five on. What tech that we have never heard of that you use at work Would you really think that people would like to have access to in.

[Zach Young]

Alex, this is your moment for your favorite thing that we never bring in.

[Alex Hawk]

A cvap.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, man. Yeah, I do love a cvap. Not really much use for it at Burger King, but man, do I love the way.

[Dave Arnold]

For those of you that don't know, it was the original. It was built for Kentucky Fried Chicken by Winston. Whatever his name is. Whatever his first name is. Winston.

[Alex Hawk]

Winston.

[Dave Arnold]

And it's a water bath and a cavity and you can get. You basically set the dry bulb, wet bulb, but they don't do it in necessarily an intuitive way. They do it in crispy units, which doesn't make sense to any other person anyway.

[Alex Hawk]

That's vapor controlled technology.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Holds it crispy, keeps it hot without drying it out. It's great. Actually, you know what? The one time I've called it on the show, one time, I'm sure you don't remember asking you, how could you incorporate a steam function and a wet bulb into a speed oven that would also involve the forced heat, forced air, cabinet temperature, and the microwave element. And you were like, oh, man, what are you asking me?

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, no, but like more complicated temperature. It's hard. Like, you know, my grandpa was a radar tech and I always asked him to help me build ridiculous microwaves. And he's like, no, no. I was like, all right. It's like my dad used to build lasers. I'm like, dad, I want to build. He's like, I'll help you build like a. A normal person laser. I'm like, no, I want a CO2 laser. He's like, nope, nope.

[Zach Young]

That's legitimately dangerous.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, so like, I feel like I had these foiled childhood things, but I've always wanted to deal with ridiculous microwaves. And then I realized that they were kind of corrected. You know that there's a not small number of people who have been killed in the past six years doing DIY microwave hacks. Oh, I'm sure where they're taking the transformer out and doing like stupid crafts, like, you know, scorch crafts and stuff. And like, one wrong and you're toast, you know what I mean? Because they're using the high voltage side of the transformer and getting zorched, you know?

[Alex Hawk]

So this reminds me of something that happened while I was in culinary school. We rented a house off campus. Old, old, old house. One night, me and the guys hanging out decided, let's go see what's in the basement. And like, it was outside access. Not really supposed to go in there. We went in there, go into this old dank basement, and there's just all these laser sequences set up everywhere. Really, really strange.

[Dave Arnold]

In culinary school.

[Alex Hawk]

So it was a technical school.

[Dave Arnold]

It's like, okay, technically. And then Homaru Kantu ran this lab.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, geez. Oh, man.

[Dave Arnold]

Zhang.

[Alex Hawk]

But in the back of this basement, we kept walking. There's just a door. We open this door and it's a perfectly all white room lit brightly with neon lights, with five slots cut into the walls. And in each of those slots was a microwave. And it was. I still. I want to go back to that house and find out what were they doing on in that basement.

[Zach Young]

This sounds like just a fever trip. I don't know what you. This is the craziest thing.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, wait, no, I'm sorry. This was. I actually watched the new Saw movie.

[Zach Young]

Oh, yeah, I got mixed up.

[Dave Arnold]

You have to choose which there. I wanted to make a room size microwave. This is the thing that my grandpa wouldn't help me do.

[Alex Hawk]

I don't know why.

[Zach Young]

Rightly so.

[Dave Arnold]

I wanted to imagine this, though. It was back when I was in art school and I was like, grandpa, listen, listen. You know, I was like, come on, you can picture it. We get a round table and we put it on a rotating platform. We put the raw food on the table and we time it so that when the food is done, the candle picks up just enough energy to carbonize and light as the thing goes ding. Then you walk into the microwave and eat your meal.

[Zach Young]

Okay, well, it was even dumber once you got to the end of. You walk into a microwave to eat your meal.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, but you know, you don't turn it on again.

[Zach Young]

Someone just like kicks the door close, like, oops, I put it on. 30 seconds.

[Alex Hawk]

Whoops.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

What's the largest microwave you've seen, Zach in production?

[Zach Young]

Ah, that gets.

[Alex Hawk]

Let's use for commercial thawing.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, but when you did say that, I was like, also just like a pallet of Hot Pockets and just like, yeah, that'd be the ultimate cold and hot experience. The Biggest ones I've seen are on like fully cooked bacon lines are, you know, in the protein world they, they'll use them basically like bacon. You just have to really to get it to fully cook. Which is a weird legal term in this case because it's technically cooked before that day, correct?

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, during the cure step.

[Zach Young]

It's cooked well no, even in that. This is even weirder. So you have to have removed a certain amount of water from fully cooked bacon to call it fully cooked. So like it's not truly fully cooked and can't be labeled as such unless a certain amount of water is taken out of it. Regardless of what temperature it hits. It doesn't matter that you've actually hit, you know, a kill step or a kill temperature. You have to have removed a certain amount of water. So there's like a weird distinction of like, like cooked but not fully cooked bacon.

[Dave Arnold]

So fully cooked bacon into an inherently safe food. Cuz it has enough water out that you can, you can put it in a jar. Yeah.

[Zach Young]

And you know, it's. There's still other require. Like generally. Yes, there's still other requirements. You have to make sure that we're right more in the pack outside of a particular facility to make sure that it could be like ambient or anything like that. But yeah, generally speaking it's got so much salt and so many nitrates in and so little water that like you're down to a water activity that's pretty low just out of that. But plus the salt and nitrates like you're definitely there.

[Dave Arnold]

I tried to make a home water activity meter back in the day, did not work. So I will not talk about it. Alex, you also. Yesterday we were chatting. Just for those who know we were chatting yesterday we went to dinner.

[Alex Hawk]

Great time, great time.

[Dave Arnold]

You also have or were playing around with the water fryer, which is something people have asked about and you say like you lurve it.

[Alex Hawk]

I really did enjoy that when I first saw it. I think my reaction was not dissimilar to everybody else's. It's like, wait, this is water and oil in a vat. Like this sounds like a death trap. And then I went through the presentation, saw it, worked with it and thought this is actually a really great idea.

[Dave Arnold]

So for those of you who don't know what we're talking about. So if anyone's heard me talk about frying, everyone knows I'm a fan of the cold zone. And so the issue with these fryers is they have in the chamber below the tubes, its Tube or it's electric, or both.

[Alex Hawk]

Either way, it's closed. It is electric.

[Dave Arnold]

Okay, so. But below the heat element is a deeper than normal cold zone that like, necks down into like an upside down steeple. And once they can guarantee that the temperature in that cold zone is below the boiling point, it's now water. And you just dump water in. It goes into the cold zone. All right, now just.

[Alex Hawk]

Yeah. So the water actually flows through the oil before it superheats enough to boil over. It hits that cold zone, stays cool and continues to drop. And then it drops into a chamber below the oil cool zone, into a water cool zone, through a bottleneck. And then all of those fragments and things that are sloughing off during fryer also flow through that same process and continue to sink and then land eventually between the oil on top of the water. So when you're draining this, everything is just sitting right there. It's not recirculating back through the fryer. Nothing's boiling over. We saw them fill a fryer basket with ice, drop it into the fryer at full temperature. This melted and sank so fast that it didn't boil over and it hit that water portion. People stayed.

[Dave Arnold]

People. Do not do that. Do not do that.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Don't try to build this one at home.

[Dave Arnold]

Listen, please. Any of you, don't listen. Do not. I'll say it one more time, do not.

[Zach Young]

Second only to the microwave room. Bad idea.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Don't.

[Dave Arnold]

But I think this is why people have a tough time wrapping their mind around something. Because. Because it's like every part of your body is like, no, no.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

You know what I mean?

[Zach Young]

But like the numbers. It's one of those. Like. But theoretically it could work. And then someone went and did it.

[Dave Arnold]

It's cool. Yeah. On machines that people have asked about constantly on the show over the years that you guys use in practice. And I'm going to. Also piggyback to Teddy's question, Maybe this is Jama5ons as well, the carbonated frozen machines. So on a carbonated. First of all, has anyone ever properly cracked diet frozens?

[Zach Young]

Not that we've seen the issue more with those on our side is we don't have enough barrels to need one. Like, if you want that, you want full sweet.

[Dave Arnold]

How many barrels do you have on your milkshake machine? Because you have like five freaking flavors. Are they mix ins?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, they're mix ins.

[Text Now Announcer]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

So we on FCB's frozen carbonated beverage, we do. You're supposed to have a three barrel there Are some people that still don't have a blue.

[Dave Arnold]

Whatever blue flavor is pepper.

[Quinn]

Yep.

[Dave Arnold]

Because Pepper.

[Zach Young]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've got. You'll always have. You always have two that are kind of like standards. And then you'll have one rotator that. That comes in. That's the idea. And then on shake, usually really just one. In most restaurants, some will have the double barrel, where you have sundae and shake. And then someone just have the single barrel. And then you have to make shake with a kind of.

[Dave Arnold]

So. So it's. It's vanilla base and both chocolate and strawberry and oreo are all mix in.

[Alex Hawk]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

Yep. You got it.

[Dave Arnold]

And like a Hamilton beach style thing for mixing or.

[Zach Young]

Oh, man. One of Hamilton Beach. Yes. Not that far off of that.

[Quinn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Young]

Which, you know, there's different generations of those too. Like, we've had better and worse of those. But like all of our specialty shakes. Yeah, they're handmade.

[Quinn]

They're.

[Zach Young]

They're different syrups and. And blends that we put in there and different, like shake. We'll do things on top. We'll do things in them. You know, we. We've tried to do a lot of fun things in the shake space because, you know, burgers and shakes go really well together.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. I have a. The original Hamilton beach was Arnold. And I own one from. I mean, the 30s. It says like Arnold number 17 on it. And as long as you don't plug it in backwards, it's fine.

[Zach Young]

You do that and it just blows up. Just goes to full speed immediately.

[Dave Arnold]

You get shaked when you touch it. And I can't. The way that it's assembled. This particular model, I can't find on the Internet how to disassemble it. Like it. It's screwed together in such a way that I can't replace the internal switch. So, like part of the switch is floating. So as long as the side of the switch that's touching the body is on the neutral side, you're good. But if you flip it so that. That's on the 120 side. Chapoi.

[Zach Young]

Again, I just like this idea that you'd flip it. It's on the wrong side. And it's not until you put a shake into it.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, I get bullsy back.

[Alex Hawk]

And it's now a soup machine.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. Now you, like stuck in there just forever making this.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

I was talking to Joe a couple of months ago. I used to have an amp custom with a K that was like. It was like. Looked like Eddie Munster. It was like Upholstered amp and that thing. If you plug that thing in wrong, it would blow you back. You would. You'd have the bass on if you were. If I was holding the bass, the strings, and I touched the amp and that was boom. You know what I mean? It was like. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was nasty. Hey, hey, hey. We only have 7 minutes, 30 seconds left. Quinn, I realize you didn't tell us what you did this week. You got to give us something. Let them respond. What's up?

[Quinn]

Oh, yeah, we did. The best thing I cooked this week was a riff on metrogiana. I busted open a new guanciale that we actually marinated in Shiokoji. Originally, I did buy the koji rice. I didn't make it this time, but that turned out really good. And we did some BC cherry tomatoes. And that's British Columbia. Yes.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Quinn]

Yeah. The tomatoes could have been a little riper, so we augmented the sauce with a few pieces of strawberry. And it was actually really good.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Alex Hawk]

Nice shout out to Quinn for his books on ice cream sorbets and things. I have them. They're excellent. Excellent work. Those are great. The new one's geared towards the ninja. Creamy, right? I need to get that creamy right. We have an army of those in the test kitchen.

[Quinn]

The ninja or any tempered service.

[Alex Hawk]

Really great.

[Dave Arnold]

All right, back on frozen. Chime in whenever you want. Back on this frozen machine, because I've never used one. I've said before many times that I tried to modify an old regular ice cream machine to churn carbonated. It did not end well for the kitchen. It was a nightmare. This is one of the very many reasons that the pastry department hated me at the school. But so what percentage. What percentage of that drink is frozen? Because the carbonation's only in the non frozen portion. And what's the brix level of the starting base is? In other words, it's gotta be higher than soda, right? It's gotta be closer to 1213 and not like 1110, right?

[Alex Hawk]

Yes. I'm trying to think what our target was because we. We did hack ours to put a frozen. Frozen negroni in frozen carb Groni. That was a solid.

[Dave Arnold]

Here's the problem. You get people crunk.

[Alex Hawk]

Oh, God, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Like people get turnt fast. You know what I mean? Something like that.

[Alex Hawk]

Yeah. We opened up a bag in the box and filled it. We emptied the contents and added the negroni syrup, and it was solid.

[Dave Arnold]

What pressure are those things running at?

[Zach Young]

So they're oh, God. I can't remember where we're at in psi, Ivan.

[Quinn]

We.

[Zach Young]

So the thing about those is they end up being some degree of set it. Forget it. Because they.

[Quinn]

They're.

[Zach Young]

They're preset to bricks levels, and they're preset to the amount of carbonation that's in them. So everything that goes into them is just built to, like, work. Right. So we don't play as much with those levels because you need those to kind of set as the standard. And then you can play around with the flavors, but, like, you can't do too much to. To adjust those too far up and down. There's a range. Like, you can go a little bit up and go a little bit down. But to your earlier question, like, you also have a amount of overrun like you would in an ice cream machine. So you do have an amount of air that's also, in this case, CO2, but, like, you have an amount of gaseous phase that's in there too. So it's a weird mixture because when it comes out, it's also expanding while it's doing that. Right.

[Dave Arnold]

Like instant nucleation.org.

[Zach Young]

yeah. So you're doing that as well. So it's a. It's a little bit more complicated than just a standard slushy, where you really are just talking about a water and a frozen space or a liquid in a frozen state. This has then all three states kind of all happening at the same time. So then the flow characteristics of it a little different. Just like in an ice cream, like, when you have heavier, like, a higher overrun, it flows a little bit better, but it also melts a little bit fat. Like, you've got all these things that are going on, and it just becomes a little bit more complicated in how that thing melts and how you're trying to, like, make all the combinations.

[Dave Arnold]

So paradoxically. Right. I would guess that because it is not a liquid, that it will nucleate like a mother, which would be bad were it a liquid, but then it forms a stable thing, and then probably actually still tastes relatively carbonate. Carbonated.

[Zach Young]

Yeah. I mean, surprisingly so. And because of how all that's happening, it really kind of expands and nucleates in a lot of different places very quickly, right? So, like, you get what you want of, like, a perfect, perfect forming of crystallization where, like, you're getting a bunch of very small crystals, right? Like, you're not getting those hard, chunky pieces of ice that are in there. You're getting, like, this really, really smooth and velvety Experience. The thing is, like, do you have the carbonation set right? Do you have all the things? It's not so much the brix level that's in the mix. That's right. It's making sure that mix is actually correct, that it's actually flowing in the right water to syrup ratio, and then that the carbonation is actually working and that someone has actually said it correctly.

[Dave Arnold]

Here's some stuff we have to get to because you were blowing our minds yesterday. And I think you're allowed to talk about these things. Quinn, I need you to make a guess for us and everyone out there. Listening. Listening. I want you to make a guess. So, Zach, what is. What is the largest freezer holding? Potatoes. How many pounds of potatoes would you say the largest freezer that Zach has been to can hold? Quinn, what would you say the large.

[Zach Young]

And what does it hold?

[Quinn]

Are we guessing. Are we guessing dimensions or. No.

[Dave Arnold]

Pounds.

[Zach Young]

Two pounds.

[Alex Hawk]

Yeah, it's not far from you either.

[Dave Arnold]

Or kilos?

[Quinn]

How about kilograms?

[Zach Young]

I gotta turn this around.

[Dave Arnold]

Then just whatever your guess is, Quinn, multiply it by 2.2. Holy cow. We gotta run out of time, man. What do you guess? Make a guess.

[Quinn]

5,000 kilograms.

[Dave Arnold]

5,000 kilograms. That's a measly 12. Like 12,000 pounds, right? Yeah. All right, so it's a little shy or 11. Okay, Joe, what do you think? How many pounds is the potato? Is it of potatoes are in this freezer?

[Zach Young]

Oh, now you.

[Dave Arnold]

What? Oh, potatoes. Sorry, sorry. Potatoes. How many pounds? Six tons. Okay, so that's £12,000.

[Zach Young]

Really stuck to this £12,000 number.

[Dave Arnold]

All right, all right, all right. What's the correct number, Zach?

[Zach Young]

So I had to relook this up this morning to make sure I wasn't, you know, just completely lying to everybody. And I was a little bit off. So I will say that because what I told you guys was a billion.

[Dave Arnold]

A billion. Billion pounds.

[Zach Young]

And that's sort of true. But what this can hold at any given moment is £355 million of fries or whatever, potato items. And it's £117,000 pallets of product.

[Dave Arnold]

Wait, so 300? And how many thousand?

[Zach Young]

355 million.

[Dave Arnold]

A million pounds. Are we talking about that cheese locker in Wisconsin?

[Zach Young]

No, no, that. You know, I don't know what that would count as, because that is also massive. But this is a man made. This is a man made structure. This isn't just big caves.

[Dave Arnold]

Potato is massive.

[Zach Young]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

So the. Here's the thing. So for those of you that can't do the thing that is a pound of french fries. Ready to go. Done, ready to rock, ready to go. For every man, woman, child and whoever you identify, every human being in the United States of America could right now go there and get a pound of fries.

[Zach Young]

And why I had a billion in my head is because across that particular supplier's system, they have that much just generally sitting around.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, £3 per person.

[Zach Young]

That's just one supplier. So like there's multiple.

[Dave Arnold]

This is post apocalypse optic produce.

[Zach Young]

So sorta. Yeah. I mean the other what that tells you is like just how many fries we eat. Like we eat a lot of fries. And just how that world.

[Dave Arnold]

You also said it's an oxygen free freezer.

[Zach Young]

So that's it. Almost. So that's it is completely. There's not a human person inside that freezer. So it is completely automated. What ends up happening is they, you know, palletize their boxes of fries and it goes on a little pallet robot like you've seen, you know, on Amazon or whatnot. Just shoots over and then just goes in this giant, you know, vending machine style freezer where it just gets slotted into a spot, which makes it a real problem when we need to be like, hey, remember that thing you made that one day I need it? And they're like, really, man? It's like in the big old freezer, like not easy to get.

[Dave Arnold]

So Skynet already controls our fries?

[Zach Young]

Yeah, they do.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Zach Young]

And they will hold you hostage. Yeah, yeah. All right.

[Dave Arnold]

And how much beef do you guys rock on it on an average day?

[Quinn]

Day.

[Zach Young]

Oh, how much beef do we rock in? Pounds?

[John (Co-host)]

Sure.

[Zach Young]

Oh, I don't know that I have that number off the top of my head, like roughly. So we do a couple hundred per store. Around 7,000 stores, quarter pound. So you're at, you know, 50. What would that be? Couple hundred thousand pounds per day, easily. That's just on Whopper though. It'd be more than that if you counted all beef. It gets complicated because we don't like consolidate all the numbers numbers on that. But we do many millions of pounds of beef every year.

[Dave Arnold]

All right, now on the. On some of the limited times. Are you still doing that Whopper by you thing where you were on Instagram like doing people's like. So between pizza and Tropical. What's the. What's the money? What's the money one that you're not gonna make? The one that you're not gonna make because you're like not gonna make people buy the stuff?

[Zach Young]

That's hard to say, you know, we, in those, we try to work with what people are like. We get all the different ideas in, and then we try to work with them because they can't always do exactly what they want. We have to do something that we can actually get all the ingredients for. So we try to consolidate around ideas that people are really liking and then, like, pick the ones that are kind of in that area. Typically, it's the ones that, like, we're passionate about that we know will never go anywhere. You know, for me, I do think it would be something in the Italian world, because I really want to do something where we do like a Smash Meatball or something like that where we play around with the Whopper, which we tend to not like to do, but, like, I would love to turn like a Whopper meatball and then make like that build with, you know, crispy mozzarella if it.

[Dave Arnold]

If it happens. You heard. You heard it here first. All right, we have to go out of time. The one thing I wish we'd had time to talk about because I think it's super interesting. And so I want everyone in whose listens to think about this. They have to design recipes that go out to how many thousand units?

[Zach Young]

So 6,800 in the U.S. 7,000 U.S. and Canada, and then, you know, globally, almost 20,000.

[Dave Arnold]

Right. And these recipes have to work on several and by several, like five or six different generations of equipment and be equal quality across all of those pieces of equipment with all the different supply chains, which is, I'm just going to say I don't really know because I don't do that for a living, but I'm going to guess not easy. And so your kitchen must be crazy having all these different kinds of equipment laying around. And maybe someday I'll visit and I'll, you know, also go next door and eat some chicken as well. Alex and Zach from Burger King, thanks so much for coming on. You know, come back anytime. Cooking issues.

[Alex Hawk]

Love to.

[Quinn]

Thank you.

[Zach Young]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

What would you do if you could get more. More dinner parties with friends, more gear for your garageband, more places to discover. What would you do if you could get more at Shell this summer with the Phil Lucky Sweepstakes? Stop by Shell, scan the QR code at the pump, and enter for a chance to win $100,000 or free fuel for a year. No Purchase necessary. Ends 11:59pm Central Time, August 28. Open to USDC residents 21. Visit Shell US Phil Lucky for rules and entry details.

[Alex Hawk]

All new drinks are now at McDonald's

[Dave Arnold]

with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher

[Alex Hawk]

and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.

[Zach Young]

Refreshers contain caffeine Acast powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend.

[Monica Reinagle]

I'm Monica Reinagle, nutritionist, author and host of the Nutrition Diva podcast. We dig into the questions that you are actually asking. If it's okay to drink coffee on an empty stomach Whether it's possible to retrain your sweet tooth which ultra processed foods you might actually want to include in your diet. We take a closer look at diet trends, fact check sketchy claims and track down the science so that you can feel more confident about what's on your plate. New episodes are released every Wednesday. Find Nutrition Diva on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and be sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss a single episode.

[Zach Young]

ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.