The current wrap battle enveloping much of the fast-food world is one of the strangest chapters in the already-weird competitive saga in the quick-service restaurant business.
Its return, and the competition that grew out of it, both demonstrate the power of social media on restaurant marketing, as well as the industry’s longtime practice of mimicry. No idea in the restaurant business is so good that it can’t be replicated dozens of times.
As a reminder: The Snack Wrap was so popular that McDonald’s felt it OK to remove the product from the menu in 2016 to make way for All Day Breakfast. Little was said at first, as consumers were apparently too busy stuffing themselves with afternoon Egg McMuffins to care all that much.
Yet the fan base that enjoyed the Snack Wrap featured mostly younger consumers who kept talking about it.
The talk gained steam on social media, where customers have had plenty of success in recent years bringing back formerly dismissed menu items like Chicken Fries and the Mexican Pizza. McDonald’s largely resisted it, even as franchisees called for the product’s return. Over time, the wrap gained legendary status akin to the McRib.
All that talk, however, enabled competitors to pounce. Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC, among others, stepped into the void with their own products. And then last December, McDonald’s took the rare step of announcing the Snack Wrap’s return, an announcement made at a time the chain was looking for positive news following its e. coli outbreak.
That prompted several additional fast-food chains to come out with their own products, either as a limited-time offer or as a permanent menu item. And so by the time the Snack Wrap made its return to the McDonald’s menu in early July, almost every major fast-food chain had a version of their own. Or they brought back what they already had.
Everybody seemed to get in on the act. The Phoenix concept Angie’s Prime Grill even started selling its “Angie’s Snack #!@$” for $2.89, 10 cents cheaper than the Snack Wrap. “We couldn’t stand by and have someone sell something cheaper than us and have them feed hard-working Americans low-quality and unhealthy food,” the company said in a release.
Fast-food chains are in need of traffic, and they’ve been responsive to social media, prompting record numbers of limited-time offers and a hefty number of bandwagon products like Dubai Chocolate desserts and protein everything. But to see so many chains jump on the Snack Wrap has been, well, interesting.
We tried five of the wrap sandwiches—McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Arby’s and Popeyes. We could have tried some others, such as Sonic, but we could venture only so far.
Each of the wraps are made from chicken, because chicken is hot these days and everybody wants to sell more of it. There is some but not a lot of flavor variations. Several brands have spicy wraps. A couple have honey mustard wraps. Ranch wraps are popular. Arby’s (BBQ) and Popeyes (Blackened) get some points for stretching the profile a bit.
Wendy’s, which came out with its wrap in 2023 as Snack Wrap commentary was hitting a fever pitch, was the only one not to target budget diners. The wraps were mostly priced around $3 and are designed as snack items or budget meals. But Wendy’s was priced at more than $6 and is a more premium product. The chicken was also grilled, which allegedly makes it healthier.
The family’s favorite, for the record, was the one from Popeyes, because it had the better foundation of a chicken tender. Wendy’s got high marks, too, but it was also more premium.
The rest were roughly comparable, though a couple of them looked more like a failed origami than an actual wrap. Maybe someone from Taco Bell or Chipotle could give a class on tortilla wraps, because it’s clear some of these burger chains aren’t familiar with the process.
Nevertheless, the sudden popularity of wraps on fast-food menus do not appear to be diminishing the reintroduction of the Snack Wrap. It flew off the shelves so fast that the company ran out of ingredients like lettuce.
Nine out of 10 McDonald’s customers who bought the Snack Wrap said they’d buy it again, according to the survey firm Numerator. The data firm Zappi said the Snack Wrap was the most popular of 15 fast-food wraps it asked customers about.
The question is whether the Snack Wraps will sell enough, long enough, to remain permanent fixtures on fast-food menus. Or maybe they’ll just come back every so often like the McRib.