“Burger fans are clamoring for something different,” The preamble to the post declared, “and two burger trends are waiting in the wings to dethrone the smashburger…” The new breed is bigger, juicer and altogether more flavourful…
The Smashburger exploded onto the Fast Food scene a couple of years back, with backing from some of the sector’s most wild and crazy patty slingers. And it caught on immediately, as much for its novelty as for the ‘advantages’ that smashing had over regular burger form-ing methods.
Simply Recipes recounts, the smash-burger was created, “by smashing a ball of ground beef onto a griddle or skillet. {…] The smashburger is popular for ob-vious reasons: Its crispy, lacy edges, [its] juicy interior, and the fact that it’s a lit-tle bit more manageable to eat than a traditional thick-patty burger.”
Turning away…
But consumers are turning away from the reigning fave patty style. And for good reasons: They want thicker, juicier, more-flavourful beef for their hard-earned dollars.
“That may sound like the opposite of a smashburger, but I see it more as a parallel trend,” says Lucy Woods, Consumer Insights Senior Manager at Cargill North America, a major supplier of ground beef products. “Smashburgers win on crispiness and technique; thicker burgers win on juiciness, indulg-ence, and that sense of a more-premium patty.”
‘Premium’ says it all
Woods says real burger fans are not drifting away from their fave Fast Food. Instead, they’re becoming more critical of all aspects of the burgers the major chains are offering. They want the best bite they can get for their money.
That usually means one of two choices: a burger with a thicker, juicer patty or a ‘steakhouse’ style burger. Woods says, according to her research, consumers strongly connect the quality of a burger with how flavorful and juicy it is.
The proof is in the ‘DIY’
The younger generations are cooking at home more. Surveys agree, they want to save money if they can, without sacrificing the quality and variety they crave in their dining experiences. And they’re increasingly concerned about what’s in their food. By cooking for themselves, they can exercise complete control over what goes into their bodies.
And the younger gens are consistently making juicier, more flavourful – and, consequently, thicker – burgers.
My take
I remember being thrilled to receive a ‘hamburger patty press’ for Christmas one year, back when I was in my 30s and in the throws of ‘newly-married-hood’. The priority then was to make consistent-sized and -shaped burgers which could compete in appearance with the Big Mac or the Whopper.
Perhaps as a consequence, that was an era where Wendy’s took a hit. At the time, some said that was because their patties were not only smaller, but square. In other words, non-starters.
Nevertheless… The pendulum has swung back from that ‘standard’ to a place where today’s most food-forward burgers come in all sizes, and in shapes which on one end of the scale are nearly spherical. Flavour, juiciness, bite and other non-visual appeals are now primary, and visual charact-eristics are secondary, to say the least.
And maybe that’s the way it SHOULD be…
~ Maggie J.