Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers Case Study

Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers is a QSR burger chain based in Wichita, Kansas, with more than 520 units across 36 states.

Known for cooked-to-order steakburgers, Vienna Beef hot dogs, shoestring fries with special seasoning and Freddy’s Fry Sauce, plus shakes, concretes and sundaes made from freshly-churned frozen custard, Freddy’s is a Top 500 chain and beloved among consumers.

THE CHALLENGE

Through a core menu audit to identify gaps and opportunities, Freddy’s sought to understand how their various menu categories compared to the competition. Using Datassential’s BRAND PERFORMANCE tool (consumer ratings for chains), they learned and could validate with data that Freddy’s menu parts were rated better by consumers than other QSR and Fast Casual burger concepts in most categories – yet one clearly stood out as falling behind the competition – chicken sandwiches.

“Launches & Ratings validated what we believed, that people would be interested in buying these sandwiches, and gave us even more confidence that they would be successful new additions to our core menu.”

– Rick Petralia, Director of Menu Strategy & Innovation, Freddy’s Frozen Custard

THE SOLUTION

At the time, Freddy’s offered two chicken sandwich builds, yet saw clearly from the data that to remain competitive and improve their standing in this category, they needed to innovate. The leadership team agreed that they want to be proud of everything on their menu, with quality being a core pillar for their brand. Plus, Freddy’s already served a lot of chicken and recognized the opportunity to sell even more, so they pursued a new supplier and innovated around new processes and builds. Rick Petralia, Director of Menu Strategy & Innovation, developed two new chicken club sandwiches – a Grilled Chicken Club and Crispy Chicken Club, both garnished with lettuce, tomato, mayo and bacon – and tested them through Datassential’s LAUNCHES & RATINGS platform to get an early read and ‘gut check’ on how consumers felt about the sandwiches to evaluate if they would perform well on Freddy’s menu.

THE IMPACT

The consumer scores from Datassential’s LAUNCHES & RATINGS validated Freddy’s belief that consumers would be interested in these sandwiches, with both scoring extremely high in frequency (“Is this an item you could see yourself having frequently?”) and draw (“Would you visit a restaurant just for this item?”), giving the team confidence that the sandwiches would be a successful addition to Freddy’s core menu. The two new sandwiches launched at Freddy’s in mid-December 2023, and were officially promoted in January 2024 with window clings and digital ads. The sandwiches are performing very well even beyond the advertising window, with Freddy’s experiencing a 35% increase in chicken sandwich sales versus the prior year just by adding these two items to the menu. With the very promising launch, Freddy’s team looks forward to seeing the long-term effects these sandwiches make on their brand.