No Taste for Healthful Food : Taco Bell Flirts With Fries; McLean Burger Is Out

Taco Bell Corp., the company that’s synonymous with Mexican-style fast food, might be crossing back over the border and adding French fries to its menu.

Taco Bell declined to comment on reports that it has been testing French fries at some locations and that it has already developed a television commercial touting fries. Taco Bell spokeswoman Amy Sherwood said only that French fries are “one of a number of ideas we’re looking at to provide value to our customers.”

Taco Bell isn’t the only major chain juggling its menu. McDonald’s on Monday announced that its McLean Deluxe hamburger is about to become McHistory. The giant restaurant chain said it is phasing out its unpopular reduced-fat burger.

Taco Bell won considerable media attention last year by heading off in a new direction with its Border Lights menu, a low-fat alternative for health-conscious diners. But in recent months, Taco Bell’s revenue has slowed, and Taco Bell Chairman John Martin pledged to “energize” sales by adding menu items more likely to tantalize the company’s core audience of 18- to 34-year-olds.

The 4,000-unit chain is hoping that its sales will be jump-started by a decidedly heavy lineup of new products, including the Ultimate Bacon Pizza, a bacon cheeseburger burrito and a BLT soft taco.

Talk of fries, sprinkled with salt and slathered in catsup, might seem at odds with a menu that’s top-heavy with tacos and burritos. But industry analysts say fries are at home on just about any fast-food menu.

“French fries at a fast-food restaurant are like apple pie at a diner,” said Robert L. Sandelman, a Brea-based consultant who monitors consumers’ fast-food preferences. “Whenever we ask consumers what they ate on their last occasion in a fast-food restaurant, French fries clearly come in as the No. 1 side item.”

If Taco Bell does introduce fries, the fast-food leader will be following in the footsteps of Del Taco, an Orange-based competitor that has offered fries for 30 years.

Restaurant chains carefully guard their sales figures, but fries evidently generate about 15% of the typical fast-food chain’s revenue. “Fries represent as big a percentage of sales for Del Taco as fries do in the burger category,” said Del Taco Executive Vice President Paul Hitzelberger.

Fast-food outlets offer fries because they’re an integral part of the well-balanced meal as envisioned by many young consumers. Del Taco, for example, has always offered its crinkle-cut fries alongside its Mexican-style fare, Hitzelberger said, “because that’s what the consumer wants.”

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Introduced as a nutritious alternative, the McLean Deluxe was made with a seaweed derivative and had a different taste from all-beef burgers. Peter Oakes, a Merrill Lynch restaurant analyst, said the McLean Deluxe accounted for less than 1% of McDonald’s sales.

Fast-food customers have shown a preference for fattier foods. Pizza Hut’s stuffed-crust pizza has become a $1-billion menu item in the last year. The Pepsico unit tried to sell a low-fat pizza, but it flopped.

Sales of McDonald’s McLean were so poor, in fact, that some restaurants resorted to making an occasional sandwich with regular, higher-fat beef, according to an investigation by ABC’s “Primetime Live.” McDonald’s condemned the practice.

Executives in the fast-food industry say that, when it comes to eating out, most Americans go with what tastes best--not necessarily what’s best for them.

“The popular notion of food eaten away from home being diet-conscious fare is a lot more smoke than fire,” said Bob Wisely, senior vice president of marketing for Carl’s Jr.

The Anaheim-based chain offers low-calorie alternatives, but, as Wisely notes, baked potatoes typically leave the kitchen awash in sour cream, cheese and bacon.

Wisely said the fast-food executives watched closely during the early 1990s when Delites, an Atlanta-based fast-food company, opened up with a decidedly healthy menu.

“Their logo was a heart, and they had things like low-fat mayonnaise and extra-lean burgers,” Wisely said. “They made it about two years before closing.”