Food & Beverage

Carl's Jr., Hardee's to live stream potential new menu items

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August 18, 2022

Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have partnered with interactive live streaming service Twitch to allow customers to create potential new menu items. Throughout the past few weeks, fans have voted for their favorite ingredients on social media. With these insights, Chef Owen Klein, vice president of global culinary innovation of parent company CKE Restaurants, and notable Twitch streamer and ambassador, Storymodebae, will host a Culinary Showdown livestream on Monday, Aug. 22, to create one-of-a-kind, limited-time menu items based on earlier community submissions, according to a press release.

"Carl's Jr. and Hardee's are always looking for the next craveable item, and this collaboration with Twitch allows fans to join in on our creative process at our Nashville area test kitchen," Klein said in the release. "The culinary team is excited to see what limited-time offering fans help us create during the culinary stream."

Following the Culinary Showdown stream, fans can vote on the new menu items during weekly streams on Twitch with notable streamers. Each streamer will taste test each community-designed menu item and invite their viewers to vote on their favorites. During the week of Oct. 24, Storymodebae will return to announce the winning limited-time menu item. In this final stream, viewers will have to work together in Chat to decode a series of clues that will unlock and reveal the new menu item. Following the stream, the special item will be offered at a Carl's Jr. and Hardee's in two select markets.

"The Twitch experience has always been grounded in the shared passions of our community and the interactivity that drives the service," Adam Harris, global head of Twitch's Brand Partnership Studio, said in the release. "Leaning into those core values, we've created exciting programming with CKE, where Twitch viewers will play a part in creating new menu concepts and seeing them come to life in select stores. This is a great example of how brands are building live, engaging activations that bridge on- and offline experiences."

Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee's Restaurants LLC have nearly 4,000 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 US states and over 35 international markets and U.S. overseas territories.