Wendy’s Predicts Diners Will Feel Pressured All Year

Fast food chain Wendy’s is expecting customers to feel financial pressure for the remainder of the year.

To that end, the website Nation’s Restaurant News reported Friday (May 2), the company is leaning into value offerings to attract diners after releasing earnings showing a 2.1% decline in same-store sales.

“We like the second half of the year for the activity that we have,” CEO Kirk Tanner said on an earnings call.

This includes the debut of Frosty Fusions later in the month, a partnership with Takis snacks, and a “100 Days of Summer” program.

“I think it reflects the balanced approach of getting after the customer and solving customer issues and opportunities,” said Tanner, adding that driving consumers into restaurants was key.

“It will definitely create consumer love and noise, and it’ll drive traffic.”

These efforts come at a time when consumers are dialing back on their spending. Earnings from companies such as Block have shown that Americans are focusing more on the essentials as their budgets grow tighter.

The NRN report also noted that Wendy’s is continuing with its technological investments to enhance the customer experience.

“From enhancing our mobile app and scaling our loyalty program to implementing digital menu boards and Fresh AI order-taking, we are making technology an integral element of our strategy to deliver a seamless, physical and digital experience,” Tanner said.

As covered here last week, part of the company’s technological upgrades have involved its collaboration with Palantir, which helped Wendy’s improve its supply chain.

Palantir developed a digital twin of Wendy’s to track the company’s supply chain network in real time across 3,500 trucks, railcars, ships and barges, connecting them to 60 main partners, more than 250 shipping points, 34 distribution centers and the chain’s 6,450 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.

The digital twin automatically alerts Wendy’s to things like supplies likely to go out of stock and raw materials the company should order to avoid shortages, Anita Beveridge-Raffo, lead deployment strategist at Palantir, said in an interview with PYMNTS.

For example, the platform uncovered a network-wide shortage of 10,200 cases of syrup used for soft drinks and was able to find 8,300 cases available at other distribution points. It was an issue that would have — at one time — taken 15 people an entire day of phone calls to solve. Now, the report said, Wendy’s resolved it in five minutes.