Wendy's Chili

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Wendy's Chili: A costing conundrum David Thomas founded Wendy’s International, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, in November 1969 as a fast-food outlet to provide bigger and better hamburgers within a short time to customers. Since then Wendy’s has grown rapidly. Wendy’s initial success comes from the founder’s strong belief that the combination of product differentiation, market segmentation, quality food, quick service, and reasonable prices would produce a successful company. Wendy’s most popular product is the “Old Fashioned” hamburger which is made from fresh beef and is squared in a unique shape so as to differentiate it from the others. In addition, Wendy’s targeted different continually growing segments of the hamburger market such as young adults and adults. Thomas’s initial goal was to build the first restaurant in Columbus where a customer would get a really good hamburger without waiting 30 minutes. Wendy’s set a dining room that is designed to seat 92 customers, and a pick-up window to serve drive-thru customers in every restaurant and expand the scale continuously. Because Wendy’s restaurants were generally located in urban or densely populated suburban areas, its drive-thru window brought great success by serving a large volume of customers. Unlike many other competitors, Wendy’s limited the number of menu items to four main products: hamburgers, chili, French fries, and Wendy’s Frosty Dairy Dessert. Although this limited menu added convenience for customers to choose the food and simplicity to Wendy’s preparation process, Wendy’s had no choice but to abandon its original “limited menu” concept during the late 1970s to respond in a timely manner to customer trends. As the U.S. economy entered a recession, the customer’s increasing demand for low cost fast food restaurants stimulated the continual emergence of new competitors and major competitors

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