Nothing fails to generate excitement around a fast-food brand that most have known since childhood like a new and slightly out-there menu item. We saw it with Taco Bell's, of Yum! Brands (YUM), Mexican pizza and Burger King, of Restaurant Brands International (RBI) 's, Chicken Fries.
But most of the time, you have to look outside of the U.S. for true fast food innovation — as they're tailoring to different palates, popular chain franchises can release things like McDonald's (MCD) Chili Paste Pork Ice Cream (Thailand) or the King Yeti Super One Pound Beef Burger (Japan).
While most such dishes are temporary promotions that will eventually get relegated to "crazy fast food dishes from around the world" lists, they occasionally inspire trends that make its way over here — PepsiCo (PEP)'s Frito-Lay recently cautiously released a new Doritos flavor called "Tangy Tamarind" after seeing the fruit's popularity as a snack flavor in India and Latin America.
Chicken, Chicken Everywhere
Perhaps an after-effect of the viral success of Popeyes' chicken sandwich in 2019, several big chains and their international franchises have set some serious sights on chicken.
Yum! Brands
In South Korea, Yum! Brands' Pizza Hut released a "pizza bowl" in which pizza crust is made to look like a vessel filled with boneless chicken, pineapple and mozzarella cheese.
Another Yum! child, Kentucky Fried Chicken released two very unusual items in Singapore — the Shroom 'N Cheese Pockett and the Flossy Original Recipe Chicken Porridge.
The latter is a spin on congee, a rice porridge popular in Singapore and a number of neighboring Asian countries. As food site Chewboom first reported, the KFC version of the traditional dish has pieces of both fried and dried chicken atop warm rice served in the morning hours for $3.95 Singapore Dollars (around $2.80).
The word 'chicken floss' refers to a dried meat product somewhat similar in texture to pulled pork and popular in East Asian countries.
The Shroom 'N Cheese Pockett, meanwhile, will be more familiar to Western palates given that it's simply a toasted wrap filled with KFC chicken, mushrooms and a gooey cheese blend.
This is a slightly pricier option at $7.10 Singapore dollars, or around $5.
Yum! Brands
"Turn that frown upside down when you stir up your mornings with KFC's NEW Flossy Original Recipe Chicken Porridge!" KFC Singapore wrote on its Instagram page. "Freshly prepared warm porridge topped with Original Recipe fillet chunks and chicken floss."
Do International Flavors Ever Get Big In the US?
Traditionally, chains have been cautious in developing anything that strayed too far from the Western palate in order to not sink a lot of money into something that ultimately fails to find a wide audience and thereby bring in sales.
But in recent years, the industry has been seeing a shift as some of the more unusual products can catch the attention of social media and, through the no-bad-publicity principle, inadvertently do a chain's marketing for it.
More and more, brands will specifically release product like the Pepsi's Maple Syrup Cola or Tropicana's orange juice and cereal specifically as promotional campaigns.
And if that doesn't work, there are also changing preferences. Done annually by PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, the most recent U.S. Trend Index found that more and more customers look for chips with "exotic" flavors they might not have tried before every year.
