New Report Reveals 2020’s Fast Food Winners and Losers

The pandemic has changed everything, including the kind of fast food people eat. 

Technomic, a research and consulting firm servicing the food and foodservice industry, recently released its Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, which ranks restaurants based on system sales, counting all of the sales generated by restaurants whether they are corporate-run or franchisee owned. 

The data reveals some clear winners and losers in the fast food industry, fueled by dramatic shifts in consumer behavior during the pandemic.

According to the report, one of the biggest surprise wins went to Wendy’s, which dethroned Burger King in 2020 to become the nation’s second largest burger chain. But it wasn’t just Frosty’s and Dave’s Doubles that drove sales. In March 2020, the chain introduced a breakfast menu that turned out to be a big win. Sales at Wendy’s rose 4.8% in 2020, thanks to its well-timed menu launch.

But Wendy’s win was Burger King’s loss, as the chain saw sales down 5.4% (even after former President Donald Trump sang the praises of their delicious “hamberders”). 

While Subway franchisees responded to the pandemic by providing millions of free sandwiches for the needy, they saw their sales drop 18.5% in 2020, according to the report. 

Domino’s fared much better with a 17.6% increase in sales in 2020. That’s not surprising, given that pizza delivery spiked during lockdown. Chick-fil-A, on the other hand, was more of a pandemic sleeper. 

Offering Family Meal Bundles starting at $13.25, ready-to-heat meals starting at $14.99 and partnering with third-party delivery apps DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub all proved to be successful COVID strategies for Chick-fil-A. The franchise chain showed a 13% increase in sales in 2020.

Meanwhile, sales at Starbucks were down 13.5% during 2020, as stay-at-home workers increasingly chose to make their own coffee, especially when they could no longer sit down at Starbucks and enjoy the free WiFi. 

And it looks like America is no longer running on Dunkin’ these days — sales at the donut franchise fell 5.1% in 2020, according to the report.