Touting fresh U.S. blueberries and California strawberries as key ingredients, Wendy’s restaurants are again offering berry almond chicken salads.
The fast food restaurant chain plans to buy 2 million pounds of strawberries and 1 million pounds of blueberries from now through September to meet customer demands for the seasonal salad, according to a news release from the Dublin, Ohio-based company.
Wendy’s officials hinted in the release that unseasonable weather in berry growing regions of the U.S. had an effect on the timing of the reintroduction of the berry almond salad.
“Thank goodness berries are ripening on the vine — at last,” Derek Detenber, Wendy’s vice president of brand management, said in the release.
The the salads include 11 types of field greens, in addition to fresh berries, providing a total of three servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit, according to the release. As with its other fresh produce items, Wendy’s employees slice fresh strawberries for the salads at individual restaurants.
Salads have been on the menu at Wendy’s for almost 35 years, with the chain selling more than 100 million salads in the U.S. in 2012, according to the news release. In 2012 Zagat rated Wendy’s salads as No. 1 in the fast food category, beating out Panaera, Chipolte and Subway.