How Wendy's Decision To Use Fresh Beef Led To The Creation Of Its Famous Chili

When Dave Thomas founded Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Columbus, Ohio in 1969, he already had years of experience in the fast food industry. Most notably, he had learned a lot from Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, for whom he'd once worked. Thomas was a self-made entrepreneur who wasn't afraid to try new ideas, like the Wendy's SuperBar, a buffet-style salad bar the company rolled out in the 1980s. Another was its square hamburger patty, which he came up with as a way to make it appear the burgers were bigger since the meat hung over the sides of the bun. A square burger also meant Wendy's fry cooks could fit more burgers on the grill at once.

This nicely illustrates two of Thomas' great talents — marketing and frugality. These two traits also came together when he launched the burger chain and included chili on the Wendy's menu. Using fresh ground beef instead of frozen meat was a cornerstone of the brand's identity and marketing strategy, but fresh beef doesn't last as long as frozen meat. So Thomas created chili to cut down on food waste. It also meant that Wendy's, unlike Burger King or McDonald's, featured chili as a permanent menu item, helping to set it apart.

When Dave Thomas founded Wendy's (named for his daughter Melinda Lou's nickname), he needed to solve the problem of what to do with the excess fresh beef that didn't get sold on any given day. "People have often asked me why we had chili on the menu from the start," Thomas wrote in his 1992 autobiography "Dave's Way." "It's real easy: What do you do with the leftover hamburger?" He worked hard on getting the recipe just right through "marathon" cooking sessions.

It obviously worked. Wendy's chili remains popular today, more than 50 years after Thomas came up with the tasty way to prevent food loss. In 2020 alone, the company said it sold 83 million servings in the United States alone. Its chili is popular enough to warrant the company offering it canned for home consumption. And if you're looking for a way to upgrade Wendy's chili, you can always top your fries with it. Relatedly, the company is also the only fast food chain where you'll find a chili-cheese baked potato. Wendy's, it seems, has both the chili and baked potato markets deliciously cornered.