Wendy's Decline: Quality Cuts Backfire — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] to repeat itself over and over and over again. And yet, never a single lesson is these companies that are the ones actually making these decisions. Just this endless oraoros of eating their own ass and then being surprised when their

[00:18] company eats [ __ ] for it. restaurants that decide to start in shitifying their food that they are serving their customers and then losing those

[00:30] Nostradamus to predict that that's going to lead to a decline in customers. Especially considering the pricing of these fast food options and even some of the sitdown options where this has been

[00:43] taking place are just pretty expensive. So people just go somewhere else because it's not like the pricing is overly competitive anymore. It's not cheap or anything to justify it, per se. So the catalyst behind me yapping about this,

[00:58] just jibberjabbering on it, is the CEO of Wendy's coming forward lamenting the fall off of their brand. Wendy's was once a behemoth, but now it's just a little burger bastard that no one's really clamoring for any longer. and

[01:14] of shortch changing ingredients and not delivering the quality customers would expect. Basically acknowledging that yeah, they're they've been going down people have noticed. Like I don't know anyone that still goes to Wendy's. If

[01:30] you are in the mood for fast food, you got to hanker in for some fast food and good old grease down the gullet. There are significantly better options. Wendy's used to have a pretty strong foothold there where even I would go to

[01:43] something cheap and I knew it would be pretty consistently good, but it really hasn't been that way for a while. So now I'll just go to Culver's or something and my friends go to Culver's or you know Chick-fil-A or something. But now

[01:55] Wendy's is neither consistently good nor cheap. So it just has nothing to offer right now. Though, of course, the not being cheap is a complaint you can levy

[02:08] against basically everything in the food industry right now because it's just been prices through the roof and only climbing. But even still, Wendy's has been suffering. They've been experiencing a lot of drops. So much so

[02:22] that they have now lost their number two spot. They were formerly the number two burger spot behind McDonald's, but now they have been believe this is going to leave my lips. It's going to feel like venom even

[02:36] saying this. They have been slapped by Burger King. Burger King has [ __ ] in and kicked them off their second place spot. And you know, I'm a big Scrooge when it comes to Burger King. And I've I've had

[02:51] nothing but nasty things to say about it. You know what though? Credit where credit is due. They are at least trying. They have been making strides to improve. They recognize the error of their ways that hey, maybe serving

[03:05] radioactive sludge mystery meat on these buns is not the way to success. That's not the way of the Jedi. So, they have been trying to update, upgrade, and improve. And I can appreciate that. So

[03:19] now it's got Wendy's in a bit of a panic and their CEO has told franchises and investors that Wendy's shortch changed ingredient quality for cost savings which is a very standard protocol we're seeing across the entire space. He also

[03:36] identified inconsistent service and excessive dependence on promotions as quality differentiation has eroded. Our value proposition is weakened and we experience customers expect from Wendy's, which is true. No highquality

[03:52] food, no value, no [ __ ] Today, we potential. Neither a grower nor a shower. They have been complacent to just inshitify everything for the sake of trying to squeeze even more deloons

[04:07] for the bottom line. So, as they've said, they've prioritized uh the ingredients, saving money on the ingredient cost instead of focusing on highquality items for the customers, which I think is always a baffling

[04:22] decision that gets made, and it's not exclusive to just Wendy's. One that I've yapped about a lot is Panera. I used to be a top tier glazer. I'd be I was gushing granny's on Panera for the longest time. That used to be my go-to

[04:37] place for my afterworkout meals to just get in there, kick my little legs up in my chair, and fill my belly with delectable food that I really enjoyed. But unfortunately, the Fire Nation attacked. They were

[04:54] swooped up by the private equity vultures. They they went the route of the parasite here. private equity comes in and the major push that they make is to slash the quality of the ingredients to save money there to squeeze even more

[05:08] clams for that bottom line. And what do you know? Panera took a huge hit to the quality of their food. So, I stopped going there. Tons of people stopped going there. They eventually recognized how big of a deal that was. They took a

[05:21] big hit. And now they've ever so slightly started to try and move the needle back in the other direction to try and get like better food there. now, but they've already lost me as a customer. Cuz I just I I hate when

[05:33] companies do this. I truly do because they're doing it at your expense. They deliver a product that is solid, a product that gets people in the door, a service that people enjoy, so [snorts] they like it, and then that's when they

[05:46] wean you off of it and start feeding you slop. They they try and figure out where that line is, where how far can they slopify it before you start leaving so they can save as much money as possible on quality ingredients. So shortch

[06:00] changing the ingredients there and still keep you going. And I hate that [ __ ] I really do. So it's no surprise to see where Wendy's is at here. It really seems like they're starting to have a bit of a conipion. So, the CEO rolled

[06:15] out this five-point plan to regain its ranking, targeting food quality, value, operations, store upgrades, and digital sales with him saying the menu must be rebuilt at the ingredient level, at the item level, at the menu category level.

[06:32] item level, at the menu category level. No [ __ ] You are a fast food business. So, if you start tanking the quality of your ingredients and serving food no one wants, you offer nothing. Doesn't matter how fancy the stores look or how great

[06:46] the digital storefront is. Unless the digital storefront's going to suck my [ __ ] every time I visit it when placing an order, you offer me nothing if your food's bad. So, every time a company like this makes the decision to

[06:58] knowingly tank the quality of their food, it's [ __ ] absurd. Like, what did you expect to happen? The whole reason you exist is to serve food at an affordable price. But now you're serving trash at a price that isn't really

[07:13] considerably affordable any longer. Which again, I know the pricing isn't exclusive to Wendy's, but still you offer [ __ ] nothing. It's ridiculous. It doesn't matter how much your marketing team [ __ ] posts on Twitter or

[07:27] dunks on Twitter, like all your social media stuff. None of that's going to you're serving is not good food. you're a food business. So anyway, there is also apparently a bid being prepared to take them private, which no doubt will

[07:42] be the same song and dance we've seen when other big food brands have gone private, where it only further makes things worse. Wendy's has lost more than half of its market value in the last 2 years, down from a high of around 20 per

[07:55] share in April of 2024 to under $9 on Monday. So a pretty large collapse there. And also obviously this isn't exclusive to just food companies. This

[08:08] is something that is a pretty standard practice in many other areas as well where some companies will deliver a very high quality product to get customers in and then over time after they built a loyal following and base. they will

[08:22] start slowly taking their foot off the gas and start introducing less and less more money because they now they have a built-in base that will probably purchase it regardless even if it is noticeably worse in quality than what

[08:35] something I've talked about a lot. I don't need to just regurgitate all that, but I know this isn't just a food industry practice is the point I'm making. Anyway, I saw this from the Wendy CEO and just wanted to talk about

[08:48] Wendy CEO and just wanted to talk about a little bit. That's it.