Burger King Tries to Satisfry; The technical brilliance behind these fries may be their commercial downfall

September 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Burger King Tries to Satisfry

“Satisfries.” The best part of Burger King Worldwide Inc.’s greasy (but not too greasy) creation may well be the name. According to Burger King, Satisfries, which premiered in North America yesterday, have 40 percent less fat and 30 percent fewer calories than McDonald’s fries.That’s due to a coating that is supposed to be less porous, resulting in decreased oil absorption.So, a 70-gram serving of Burger King’s newest creation has 150.5 calories versus the 226.8 in the same size portion from McDonald’s. And a small order of the crinkle-cut Satisfries has 70 fewer calories (270 vs. 340) than Burger King’s regular fries.

The technical brilliance behind these fries may be their commercial downfall.

When fast-food restaurants add healthier items to their menus, not that many people order them. That’s why, according to Burger King’s North American chief marketing officer, the company opted against adding another healthy option to the menu and instead decided to re-jigger a popular fatty food. The fries are also an effort to snatch back wayward customers thinking about bidding goodbye to greasy friends and turning to the dark — kale-colored — side. Burger King isn’t saying these new fries are healthy, just that they’re less unhealthy than the regular kind (and the kind at that place with the golden arches).

Satisfries will be offered right alongside traditional fries, which more than half of Burger King’s customers order. It will be just as easy for consumers to skip the lower-cal fries option as it is for them to pass over the salad bar for the bulging burger combo meal. If you really want to eat healthy — or at least healthier – you probably shouldn’t go to Burger King in the first place.

Of course, people don’t eat fast food only because it’s soaked in grease. It’s also cheap. So Burger King isn’t doing any favors by suggesting that franchisees make Satisfries 20 to 30 cents more expensive than regular fries (although on children’s meals, they’ll be the same price).The slight premium seems especially unfair given that the company has said it will be saving money on oil. Then again, one imagines that two years of work with McCain Foods to engineer the Satisfries came at no small cost.

Previous attempts to introduce low-fat fries haven’t turned out so well. But those fries weren’t named Satisfries. The ultimate fate of Burger King’s latest offering may rest in how utterly awesome — or completely humiliating — it is to order your burger with a side of Satisfries.

(Zara Kessler is an assistant editor and producer for Bloomberg View. Follow her on Twitter.)

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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