If you hadn’t guessed from the headline, the winner of a recent study on more than a dozen Fast Food burgers was… Whataburger. The researchers rated burgers by their price-per-ounce of meat in each chain’s cheeseburger patty…
The classic Whataburger Single Cheeseburger: The most meat for your money!
The big winner in the best-value burger survey was the little regional chain with the big reputation for unbeatable beef.
A surprise to some
It was a genuine surprise to some folks when Whataburger was named the top-value burger.
What was of greater surprise to me was the methodology of the survey and analysis that led to that conclusion.
What they did
A team from NetCredit sampled single-patty cheeseburgers from more than a dozen Fast Food pur-veyors and analyzed not only the beef patties, but the fries on the side and other metrics they considered essential to a consumer’s understanding of value dynamics in the Fast Food industry.
“To discover the best value burgers and fries combination in America from major chains, we calcul-ated the price per ounce of patties and fries at these 14 largest U.S. burger chains,” the survey report states. “We made sure that all burgers were the standard single-patty cheeseburger variants at each chain and that all fries were medium or regular options. Both patties and fries were weighed using accurate kitchen scales after removing any other ingredients (buns, bacon, lettuce, sauce, etc.).”
Not only that, but: “Additionally, we looked up the protein and calorie counts for each burger from the chain’s nutritional menus to identify the most protein- and calorie-rich burgers.”
That’s sound, scientific methodology.
What they found
We already know they found Whataburger the best value in the Fast Food Burger sector. But where did the global burger giants fall in the NetCredit heirarchy.
Shake Shake came second in the rankings, followed by Wendy’s. McDonald’s patty came in smallest. All the other competitors fell in the middle, with generally small differences in patty weight.
Shake Shack had the best-value Fries. Five Guys gives you the most fries by weight. But they charge you double that the closest runner-up does: $11.29!
My take
Bravo Whataburger! It’s great to see a small, regional legend out-do the big global competitors in a comparison of value for the consumer’s buck. You’d think the one of the giants would easily take the title of Best-Value Burger, what with their huge economies of scale billion-fan customers bases.
I have a feeling the big guys may be a little too focused on profit and number crunching… And not enough on connecting with their fans!
Maggie J.