Fast food, as can be gleaned from the name, is a business of exceedingly small margins, bright marketing, aggressive competition and unique branded food packaging solutions.
The latter aspect is a particularly important part of making a customer’s experience feel special, hence the reason why the biggest chains have brightly coloured recyclable boxes with each menu item often receiving its own bespoke box, turning customers into miniature billboards.
However, this trend can also work in reverse, and for how many unique fast food menu items are on the market right now or in limited edition cycles, there are others that have been permanently discontinued for a range of unique reasons.
McPizza
Whilst McDonald’s is almost exclusively known for their burgers, fries and chicken nuggets,
Mcdonald’s has experimented with nearly every type of fast food product you could ever imagine.
With that said, McDonald’s in the late 1980s and early 1990s selling the McPizza is still a strange phenomenon that the golden arches were surprisingly committed to.
Initially a family-sized pizza served on a raised plate akin to a pizza parlour, it was shrunk down to a personal size before being discontinued, largely because it was the one menu item that took ages to cook and was not suitable to take away.
Hula Burger
Whilst practically every restaurant has a wide range of delicious vegan options, early Mcdonald’s in the 1960s had just two options for people who did not eat meat but would eat fish, and both were at war with each other.
Whilst the divisive Filet-O-Fish would turn out to be a success, the Hula Burger’s mix of grilled pineapple, cheese and nothing else on a bun was a complete failure.
Burger Shots
Sold in a big box that more closely resembled a box of doughnuts than traditional burger packaging, the BK Burger Shots, also known as the Burger King sliders, Burger Bundles and Burger Buddies, was a set of miniature burgers sold in packs of three or six.
For whatever reason, however, they never seemed to take off, and after the Burger Shots were discontinued in the late 2000s, Burger King seemed to stick with full-sized sandwiches.