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Would you like some kimchi in your burrito, sir? A look at Taco Bell's innovation process

The public relations folks at Yum! Brands recently took a moment to give us a peek inside their menu innovation process.

August 2, 2016 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

The public relations folks at Yum! Brands recently gave us a peek inside their menu innovation process when the company's PR team sent out information about two new U.S. test market items being introduced soon in the Ohio and North Carolina.  

The Cheetos Burritos, which we're figuring a lot of people might order just because it's so fun to say), includes beef, buttered rice, nacho cheese and, of course, Cheetos  in a dollar burrito. This cheesy item will be doled out for the tasters and testers in Cincinnnati soon, where they will probably dip it into the chocolate-containingchili that the city is known to serve.

Then, down a little further south in Charlotte — where apparently people never stop moving — the brand will introduce Walking Nachos. These are being billed as a mélange of premium ingredients that customers can "crush, mix and love on the go." The item includes chips with seasoned beef, guacamole, sour cream and a three-cheese blend in a foil-lined bag for $2.99.

Our only concern on that one — and you know this will happen — is that somebody is bound to order one of these while playing Pokemon Go!, and we will never see them again.  

The tests before the test market

Like most brands, the test market stage is really one of the last steps in developing a new product. And for Taco Bell, especially, there is a ton of work that goes into creating innovative new menu items, particularly in the current food service environment that demands more sustainably grown and often locally sourced menu items.

But then that's kind of how Taco Bell started in the first place with one man's single taco stand in Downey, California, in the 1960s, when burgers were the fast-food rage of the day. Founder Glen Bell brought something quite innovative to the local foodscape: Customers used to mispronounce Taco Bell as "Take-oh Bell" back then because tacos were so new, according to the news release. 

In that sense, the brand sees innovation as its birthright to some extent. That is one of the reasons its leaders claim that in their pursuit of opening 1,000 restaurants by 2020, their international market locations and menu items are so important. 

Going global

When it comes to moving into a foreign market, Taco Bell execs said that before they agree on an exact store location, they have a team on the ground, "immersing themselves in the culture to fully understand which aspects of life we need to focus on."

When Taco Bell moves into these communities they take three main steps:

1. Move a team to the city under consideration: The mission of this group is to learn what everyday life is like in the target city, including how people get to work, what they do for fun and what the city and its people are all about. 
2. Get to know the locals:The ground team holds "focus groups" to determine what is top-of-mind important to people who live in the target market and how outsiders can become part of the community. 
3. Serve food: This is where team members actually cook up and dole out some of the chain's current offerings in order to get an idea if the flavors are something locals even like. This also gives them the chance to relatively harmlessly experience some rather hard-to-foresee stumbling blocks, like whether the local community has any cultural habits that might stand in the way of local consumption of Taco Bell menu items. 

On that last item, for instance, the brand found that when it sampled its restaurant offerings in Tokyo, customers wouldn't order the nachos and cheese because they prefer not to get all cheese-strewn like we Americans seem to love. That was a valuable finding that prompted the chain to evolve its nachos in Japan into a bag of seasoned chips with a la carte dipping sauces.

The approach Yum! is taking to moving into both international and domestic markets these days seems to fall nicely into sync with the trend toward more locally sourced, locally connected eating. The brand's leaders said they take a "small business" approach to each location in order to form a connection with the surrounding community. 

The (sometimes funky) fruits of their innovation labors

So what kinds of things come out of all the efforts discussed above? Well, for the Taco Bell chain internationally, a few of the notable menu innovations that have come out of their fact-finding processes internationally include: 

• Canada: Cheetos crunchwrap sliders
• Cyprus: Gordita with fries and Tzatiki sauce
• Guatemala: S'mores choco crunchwrap
• India: Tikka Masala burrito
• Japan: Shrimp and avocado burrito
• Korea: Kimchi quesadilla

Oh, how I wish I was in Guatemala. 

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.