The holdup behind Burger King’s chicken sandwich rollout? Not enough pickle jars.
There’s possibly no better cautionary tale about what happens when one part of a supply chain goes offline than the stalled release of Burger King’s new chicken sandwich. Set to be the latest contender in the fast-food chicken sandwich war, the offering was scheduled to be released later this year—but has hit a snag with one key ingredient: the pickles. Apparently the issue isn’t a pickle shortage, it’s a pickle jar shortage: “We couldn’t get the pickles because they couldn’t get the jars during the pandemic,” the VP of operations for a Burger King franchisee in Grand Rapids, Michigan, told NBC affiliate Wood TV. Pickle makers have had problems obtaining glass jars due to disrupted manufacturing schedules and recycling cutbacks, leading to as much as an 88 percent decrease in pickle availability last summer. Burger King execs are still spinning the shortage; as one executive put it: “We’ll take the time to get it right and our guests will definitely taste the difference.”
