Stacey Borah, R&D analyst and food innovation technologist at KFC, is a trained pastry chef who previously worked as pastry lead for Hyatt Hotels and ran a wedding cake business. So when it came time to develop a portable, bite-size dessert for the Louisville, Kentucky-based chicken chain, she was all over it.
The result is the Apple Pie Popper, a snackable sweet Borah created and commercialized with the KFC Food Innovation Technology team. Each poppable is composed of spiced apple pie filling wrapped in a crisp, buttery and flaky crust. The LTO launched early in April, selling at the snackable price of $2.49 for four pieces.
“We’ve had desserts before, including a family-size Bundt cake, brownies and apple pie, but this is the first dessert aimed at the individual occasion,” Borah said, referring to the 11 years since she's been with KFC. “The younger generation wants to snack, so we’re really focusing on portable, snackable options.”
Indeed, Gen Z snacks frequently, according to Restaurant Business sister company Technomic. Recent data shows that snacking makes up 24% of eating occasions at limited-service restaurants for this demographic. KFC went after these customers with a platform that lends itself to line extensions.
Digging into Southern roots
“We centered on apple pie because it’s an all-American, Southern dessert that fits our brand,” said Borah. She tapped into her pastry chef experience and knew she wanted a flaky, buttery dough to enclose a spiced apple filling. The team worked with a supplier partner that specializes in laminated doughs, the type that form flaky layers when cooked. The same supplier, a bakery specialist, provided the filling.
Stacey Borah leaned into her pastry chef training to develop Apple Pie Poppers. | Photo courtesy of KFC.
“The laminated dough worked well, but we added a little more spice to the filling to get the warm cinnamon flavor we were looking for,” said Borah.
The Apple Pie Poppers come in individually frozen with the raw dough sealed around the filling, sprinkled with crystals of sugar and vented. KFC deep-fries them in hot oil until they are golden and get a little crunchy on top, then holds them warm for service. They’re cooked in batches throughout the day in separate fryers from the chicken products.
“We tried different cook times to develop layers of flakiness in the laminated dough and get the right golden color and crunch,” said Borah. “They had to stay in a little longer than we originally thought.” As far as packaging goes, the Apple Pie Poppers conveniently fit into the same to-go sleeve as a junior order of fries.
KFC’s Apple Pie Poppers launched as a limited-time offer, but can eventually work their way onto the permanent menu. Borah can envision line extensions for the platform, using the same laminated dough with different fillings. “We’re looking at other poppables,” she said.
Modernizing the menu
KFC is on a mission to modernize its menu, and portabability is a key driver of that mission, she added. “We are always looking at new processes and products to meet consumer demand. We have to win over the ‘no’ vote in the car,” said Borah, which means gravitating away from bone-in chicken and toward boneless items and handhelds, like the Poppers and the chain’s Twister Wraps currently in test. The latter is a toasted wrap filled with two chicken tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and KFC’s pepper mayo, and has “a salady vibe,” she said.
Beverages are also a major focus of innovation—an active category in limited service concept. “We’ve been lagging behind in beverage development,” said Borah, adding that KFC is testing new flavors in some of its current beverages and partnering with key suppliers to source certain flavor syrups.
Although she didn’t provide any specifics, “expect beverage news in the near future,” she said, “and maybe the next iteration of dessert Poppers.”
One daypart the chicken chain is not looking into: Breakfast.