MIAMI -- Although you don't expect Burger King to roll out a product with "Mac" in its name, the quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain will officially debut Mac n’ Cheetos, deep-fried macaroni-and-cheese sticks encrusted with Cheetos-flavored breading on June 27, it said. The new snack is already creating significant social media buzz (#macncheetos).
The company developed the new product in partnership with PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay, which owns Cheetos, Doritos and other snack brands.
It’s the latest entry in the flavor mashup trend. In 2015, Burger King tested Doritos Loaded, a triangular snack filled with melted cheese and encrusted with Doritos Nacho Cheese flavor. The product debuted exclusively at Washington, D.C., 7-Eleven convenience stores in early 2014 before going chainwide and eventually rolling out to other snack retailers.
In 2012, Taco Bell introduced Doritos Locos Tacos, featuring a shell made out of Nacho Cheese Doritos snack chips. It later rolled out Cool Ranch and Fiery Doritos flavors.
Mac n’ Cheetos come in an order of five pieces at the recommended price of $2.49 and will be available for a limited time at participating Burger King restaurants. The item, which has 310 calories, has already appeared at some Burger King restaurants in a trial phase, said a Bloomberg report.
“We’re partnering up with one of Americans’ favorite brands,” he told the nees agency.
The Mac n’ Cheetos debut also reflects the increasingly tangled web of fast-food alliances, said the report. Though PepsiCo owns Cheetos, Burger King’s U.S. restaurants sell beverages from Coca-Cola Co., another company backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Some of Burger King’s international locations sell Pepsi drinks, however, and domestic locations offer PepsiCo’s Quaker oatmeal.
The new item shouldn’t be seen as a sign that Burger King is switching to Pepsi in the U.S., Macedo said. “It’s not a plan for us to migrate to Pepsi. Our relationship with Coke is as good as it is with PepsiCo,” he said.
The two companies started working together about a year ago to create the mac-and-cheese item. It’s the first time the Cheetos brand has been extended beyond chips into other food, and there may be more hybrids coming, the report said.
“We’re working on a few other menu items,” Macedo said. “There’s room for us to do more together in the future.”
Miami-based Burger King Corp. operates more than 14,000 QSR locations, most owned and operated by franchisees. Oakville, Ontario-based Restaurant Brands International Inc., one of the world's largest QSR companies with more than $23 billion in system sales and more than 19,000 restaurants in approximately 100 countries, owns the Burger King and Tim Hortons brands.
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