Taco Bell isn’t chicken when it comes to entering the nugget wars
Did the fast food restaurant known for Crunchwraps and Doritos Locos Tacos deliver on its promise of an ‘unexpected and undeniably bold’ chicken nugget?
It’s almost 2025. McDonald’s introduced the Chicken McNugget over four decades ago. Is it possible to find a new twist on the nugget? And is it possible for that twist to come from a fast food chain that sells tacos?
That’s the question we have to ask about Taco Bell’s big rollout for its Crispy Chicken Nuggets. The new menu item became available nationwide on Thursday, and after realizing I was right by a Taco Bell while running an errand, I knew that I had to put an order in to try these nuggets.
The bar for a chicken nugget is very high. You either need to hit the iconic notes of McDonald’s Chicken McNugget or you need to differentiate yourself by making a nugget that’s of a higher quality like Popeyes. Taco Bell promises that their Crispy Chicken Nuggets will “push the boundaries of innovation yet again.” I was intrigued to see what this promise meant. For Taco Bell, innovation often means “hey, look at this gimmick.” Doritos Locos Tacos, putting a giant Cheez-It in the Crunchwrap, the Naked Chicken Chalupa — all technically innovation, but also just gimmicks.
Based on the increasingly crowed fast-food chicken market (CNBC tells me there’s a new chicken war brewing), I got the sense that Taco Bell is serious about the Crispy Chicken Nugget. This isn’t supposed to be gimmick. Was it?
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