"We are continuously trying to streamline our menu to make it more manageable for our store team, and we want to be able to cross-utilize as many ingredients in different recipes as possible," Quick Chek's senior category manager of foodservice Jennifer Vespole told [image-nocss] CSP Daily News. She added that Quick Chek discontinued a buffalo-flavored tender that had few recipe applications, with the introduction of the crispy chicken items. "The new tender can be made into many different recipes," she said.
Also, according to Vespole, chicken and turkey consistently rank at the top on sandwich menus in terms of units and sales. "We wanted to have a grilled-and-breaded chicken offer on our menu," she said. "Both styles of chicken are extremely popular in our market."
The new offerings are:
Crispy Chicken, Egg & Cheese on a Croissant Crispy Chicken Salad Crispy Chicken Tenders Classic Chicken Parm sandwich Crispy Chicken Cordon Bleu on a Portuguese Roll Crispy Buffalo Chicken sub Each menu item is made fresh in the store, with the chicken tenders being heated in TurboChef ovens to achieve the crispy texture.
"All of the new recipes are made to order," Vespole said. "This means a sub, sandwich or salad with the new breaded-chicken tenders is made to the customer's preference or to our signature-recipe standards."
She added that the new items are also consistent with Quick Chek's foodservice strategy "to be a destination for fresh convenience."
"Our sandwich menu offers customers choices for signature recipes that are developed based on trends in the fast-casual, sandwich and QSR industries," she said. "Plus, we give the customer many options for recipe customization."
Although the new menu items launched Monday, Vespole said she already has received "very positive feedback" from store teams during the two-week training process. She said the company has several tests of additional new products in the works right now, but declined to comment on what those items are at this time.
Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Quick Chek is a privately held, family-owned firm, operating more than 100 stores throughout New Jersey and southern New York. Quick Chek's retail locations include 12 pharmacy stores and 17 locations with fuel.
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