On Monday, Wendy’s added its first new Frosty flavor in nearly three years. The strawberry Frosty will only be available this summer.
“We’re always listening to our fans and as the most-requested item, it was a no-brainer for us to bring the Strawberry Frosty to the menu this season,” said chief marketing officer Carl Loredo in a statement. “While some of our competitors are still trying to get their ice cream machines to work, fans can dip into this new strawberry treat all summer long at Wendy’s.”
The flavor was added to Canadian Wendy’s menus in 2021 and proved to be incredibly popular. It eventually emerged as one of the chain’s “most talked about items” online, Loredo told CNN Business. The strawberry Frosty was then tested by Wendy’s in a handful of U.S. cities, where it seemed to be just as popular.
“The net of it was that we ran out of product halfway through the program because people loved it so much,” Loredo told the outlet. “It’s highly anticipated—I dare say as anticipated as the launch [of] our spicy nuggets.” The summer strawberry chicken salad, which combines sliced strawberries, bacon, and grilled chicken with spring mix and lettuce, is also coming back.
As only the second Frosty flavor to be added to American menus in the past 16 years, the sudden shake-up by the fast food establishment was partially done to help with higher commodity and labor costs, which have impacted the chain’s margins this past year. Wendy’s shares were reportedly down more than 20 percent in 2022.
“The first quarter, from a margin point of view, did not fully go with plan,” Wendy’s CFO Gunther Plosch said in an analyst call overheard by CNN Business. “We missed sales slightly,” he continued, saying “commodity and labor inflation was a little bit higher than what we expected.”
Previous limited-edition items on Wendy’s menu included a birthday cake Frosty in 2019 that was made in honor of the company’s 50th anniversary.
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