As far back as the 1970s, international fast food restaurant chain Burger King has attempted to introduce a premium line of burgers. These sandwiches are part of a system which eventually became known as the barbell strategy; a plan designed to expand Burger King's menu with both more sophisticated, adult-oriented fare along with products that are more value-oriented. This program is intended to bring in a larger, more affluent adult audience who will be willing to spend more on the better quality products on one side while maintaining a lower cost value menu dedicated to a more cost-conscious audience on the other. The hope is that the customers would be drawn in initially for the lower prices of the value-menu and upgrade to the more expensive products, upping overall sales.
The chain's first major attempt was part of their Specialty Sandwich line that was introduced in 1979 was the Sirloin Steak Sandwich. After the failure of the Specialty Sandwich line, Burger King went on to introduce several other premium burgers made from a variety of meats. One major example introduced in 2002 was the BK Back Porch Griller sandwich line. The sandwich, introduced in May 2002 was a pronounced failure, and pulled in September of that year. The next product Burger King introduced was its Angus Steakburger which it began selling in 2004; it too had lack-luster sales due in part to the patty being pre-cooked. The sandwich was later reformulated as the Steakhouse Burger which used a thinner, flatter, fresh cooked patty. The Steakhouse Burger sandwich was eventually replaced with the Steakhouse XT/Angus XT burger, which used a new, thicker round patty among several other changes. This newer sandwich was made possible with the introduction of the company's new broiler systems which allowed varying cooking times and temperatures which in turn gave the company the ability to utilize fresh cooked, thicker patties in its sandwiches. Only variations of the sandwich that explicitly state "Angus" in the title are manufactured from meat from Angus cattle. In 2011, the company discontinued selling the product in the North American market, replacing it with the Chef's Choice Burger. The Chef's Choice Burger was removed in 2012. 2014 saw the introduction of the newest attempt at introducing a premium burger to the company's portfolio with the introduction of the A.1. Ultimate Cheeseburger in North America.
Internationally, the chain has introduced several lines of premium sandwiches. In New Zealand, the chain first introduced the BK Crown Jewels line which was based upon the Whopper, TenderGrill, and TenderCrisp sandwiches. The line was eventually replaced with the BK King's Collection menu of Angus-based sandwiches. It also sold Angus-burgers in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. In East Asia, the chains sells the Angus XT sandwich which is a variant of the Steakhouse XT. In Great Britain, the chain has also introduced a burger based on lamb and another based on Wagyu beef, while back in the United States it sold a turkey burger sandwich – all of which were limited time offerings (LTOs).
To promote continuing interest in these products, Burger King occasionally released limited-time only (LTO) variants on its premium burgers that have different ingredients from the standard sandwich recipes. Being one of the company's major business strategies, these sandwiches have sometimes been the center of product advertising for the company.
History North America Sirloin Steak sandwich
The Sirloin Steak sandwich was introduced in 1979 as part of a menu expansion that in turn was part of a corporate restructuring effort for Burger King. During the mid-1970s, Burger King was having issues with its operations, franchises and image. In 1978, Donald N. Smith was hired from McDonald's to help restructure the corporate operations of Burger King to better compete against his former company as well as the then up-and-coming chain, Wendy's. As part of an operational overhaul he dubbed "Operation Phoenix", Smith reorganized the corporate operations of Burger King. He also initiated a development plan for a new product line that would become known as the Specialty Sandwich line. Development began that same year, and while the company found that the new product lines would add an approximate eight second delay to the production time of orders and would cost about $39 million in lost productivity, the product was introduced in 1979. Despite these possible sales losses and time issues, the new products were successful and the company's sales increased by 15 percent.
Included in the new line was the Sirloin Steak Sandwich, a single oblong patty made of chopped steak served on a sub-style, sesame seed roll. It, along with the Original Chicken Sandwich, was one of the first attempts by a major fast food chain to target a specific demographic, in this case adults aged between 18 and 34 years, members of which were presumably willing to spend more on a higher quality product.
Back Porch Grillers The Back Porch Grillers were introduced in 2002 as part of a plan to increase the company's sales ahead of the upcoming sale of Burger King from then owner Diageo to a group of investors led by Texas Pacific Group (TPG). In its press release announcing the product, Burger King stated the intent of the burgers was to evoke the taste of a grilled burger that one would cook at home. At the time of launch there were two flavors of the sandwich, the Homestyle and the Smokehouse Cheddar, both served on a "bakery-style" bun. A third type, the Black Stack BBQ Griller, was introduced as a product tie-in with Men in Black II two weeks later on June 3, 2002. Initial testing of the sandwich led to favorable scoring in customer surveys and a roughly 15% increase in sales without compromising the sales of other products such as the Whopper. Due to the favorable results in testing, the company pushed up the introduction of the sandwich nationally. However, the product was statemented into two variants due to the company's introduction of its new broiler line; these new broilers were designed to allow a greater flexibility of products with different cooking times and heat settings which allowed the company to sell thicker burgers that required more cooking times. At the time of the sandwiches' introduction, the new broiler units had only been introduced to about one tenth of its North American stores. In these stores the sandwich was made with a single, thicker patty; in those locations with the older units, the company used a pair of thinner patties in a double burger sandwich. The use of the thinner patties resulted in numerous customer complaints that the sandwich was dry and not as tasteful as the thicker patty version.
The product was introduced at a point of massive change for the company; besides the new broiler system that was being introduced, the company was also adding an entirely new product holding system designed to improve the quality of its products. Burger King was also tinkering with its menu in regards to other products, adding the Griller and a new veggie burger sandwich along with changes to its grilled chicken offerings, onion rings and milkshakes. The company had high hopes for the product at the time of introduction; same store sales for the company had been falling for at least five years resulting in lagging market share and decreased customer counts. The failure of the product left a hole in the company's menu, leaving it without the premium product side of its barbell strategy at a point where parent Diageo was trying to build up the chain's value to maximize the profit in the upcoming sales to the Texas Pacific Group. This failure was part of a series of events that deteriorated the chain's financial performance and eventually forced Diageo to drop its selling price for the chain from to .
The Angus Burger
The Angus burger was first introduced into the North American market in 2004. The burger featured a seasoned, patty that was intended to have a "steak flavor". The sandwich was introduced at the height of the low-carbohydrate diet craze that was popular in the United States at the time, a trend that Burger King hoped to capitalize on. The chain also hoped to stave off competition from up-and-coming fast casual restaurant chains such as Panera Bread and Chipotle by adding a higher quality product. At the time of the introduction, the sandwich's price point was $3.29 – one of the highest-cost sandwiches the chain had introduced to that point. The sandwich was introduced in two varieties, but was supplemented with a two LTO varieties, one of which was a product tie-in with NBC's The Apprentice in 2005.
The Angus burger was one of the company's important product lines, targeting a group of consumers the chain identified as the "Superfan"; a demographic of individuals that composed 20 percent of the chain's customers, but 50 percent of the sales volume. One of the issues related to the sandwich's failure was that the patty it was using was precooked; the sandwich lacked the taste of a burger that was cooked from raw. While the burger was presented as a premium product, the meat texture was found not to be much different from that of the Whopper – a less-expensive sandwich that many customers preferred. Beginning in January 2008, Burger King began to phase out the Angus burger in the US with the intention of replacing the sandwich with a newer Angus-based product in the second quarter of 2008.
Steakhouse Burger
The Angus Steakhouse Burger was introduced in April 2008 as the replacement to the Angus Burger. The new burger featured a large, square shaped Angus beef patty with two permanent variants of the sandwich with an LTO version later that year. The burger was thinner than the Angus Burger because many of the Burger King locations still used an older model broiler to cook their burgers. The older model relied solely on a single chain with uniform cooking speed and temperature which restricted the thickness of meat patties. As a result, thicker patties such as the one utilized with the previous iteration of the sandwich needed to be precooked.
In press releases and interviews regarding the sandwich, the chain claimed that the "Steakhouse Burgers offer the indulgence of an entire steak dinner at a fraction of the cost". While the regular variant was served with more traditional toppings, the Loaded Steakhouse garnered notoriety for its unusual main ingredient, mashed potatoes topped with crispy, fried onions and A1 steak sauce. Reviewers of the sandwich described the Loaded Steakhouse burger as "disgustingly good", "Meaty Jewel in Burger King's Crown", and that the "topping is pretty weird".
By October 2008, Burger King announced it had shown revenue growth in the United States despite the fiscal slowdown related to the 2008 financial crisis. According to the company, same store growth in the U.S. grew approximately 3.6% in part to sales of the Steakhouse Burger. Despite the profit, the company missed Wall Street's estimates by a penny per share which resulted in a 37¢ drop in the chain's share prices.
Steakhouse XT