Chicken nuggets were a thing before McDonald's began selling them nationwide in 1983.
They were not the restaurant kids' menu staple they are now. And they were rarely even a restaurant item at that point. Instead, you could find uninspiring chicken nugget-like products in your grocery store's freezer aisle.
Brands like Weaver offered a variety of shapes of highly processed bite-size chicken that kids ate, but nuggets still were a fringe item, much less popular than the longer chicken fingers sold at pizza places and sandwich shops.
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It's fair to say that McDonald's (MCD) -) rocked the fast-food world in 1983 when it rolled out Chicken McNuggets nationwide. The product was an immediate hit not just with kids, arguably the intended audience, but also with their parents.
The fast-food chain had clearly shown that in a world where Wendy's (WEN) -) and Burger King had limited their innovation to slightly different takes on the hamburger, customers wanted something different. McDonald's made offering chicken nuggets table stakes for fast-food chains in the burger space.
It also succeeded in creating an iconic product, like its french fries, that its rivals would struggle to duplicate. Yes, every chain has some form of chicken nugget, but as anyone who has tried Burger King's bad-to-middling attempts at the genre over the years, only McDonald's has Chicken McNuggets.
Now, at its locations in Japan, McDonald's has launched its next take on the McNugget, and maybe it can change the fast-food world again.
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McDonald's menu adds a Shrimp McNugget
McNuggets are not the only bite-sized item, McDonald's has offered. The chain briefly sold Fish McBites for three months during 2013, but while they retained a cult fandom, they were not big sellers.
Shrimp, however, has a more adult connotation than fried fish, which tends to be associated with fish sticks, a children's staple that few adults eat.
Fried shrimp has become increasingly popular in the U.S., and it's almost odd that it has not made an appearance on the menu at any of the major U.S. burger chains.
Now, McDonald's has introduced what could be called (but isn't formally) a Shrimp McNugget. The product has made its debut in Japan, but the company hasn't brought this new item to the U.S.
The chain shared this (translated from the Japanese) on its McDonald's Japan X (formerly Twitter) feed:
"Long-awaited shrimp side menu Finally released on 9/20 (Wednesday)! #puripurebipurio."
It's not quite a Shrimp McNugget
It's almost odd that McDonald's has not leveraged the McNugget brand in the U.S. It could offer pork, fish, or even beef McNuggets. And while shrimp may not have seemed like a first choice, the protein has become increasingly popular.
"Puripuri is a unique Japanese word that describes a plump and firm-giving-way-to-tender consistency, pretty much the ideal mouth feel for cooked shrimp, and ebi is 'shrimp' in Japanese," Japan's Sora 24 News shared to explain the name.
"Purio," has a less direct translation, but the news website believes it's related to the Japanese pronunciation of "Filet-O," from McDonald's signature fish sandwich.
The creation of the all-but-in-actual-name Shrimp McNugget, even with its release only in Japan, has implications for U.S. customers. It shows that McDonald's is willing to experiment with one of its core product lines.
In addition, it's not uncommon for McDonald's to introduce a product without the "Mc" part of the name. That happened recently with its Crispy Chicken Sandwiches which were renamed the "McCrispy" with some fanfare.
That's not guaranteed to happen here, but it seems possible that the chain's fans may see McNuggets that are not "Chicken McNuggets" sooner rather than later.
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