Burger Brawls

Some beefs on the griddle

Which is better, a hamburger cooked on a griddle or one broiled over a flame? The question sounds like a backyard debating topic for a summer afternoon. Yet business has been slow of late in the $35 billion fast-food industry, and last week the issue had burgerdom's three leviathans in a sizzle. Tempers flared when the Burger King Corp. of Miami, the nation's second largest fast-food restaurant chain (3,500 outlets, $2.3 billion in 1981 sales), launched a provocative $19 million network television ad blitz designed both to grab off a bite of the market from its larger archrival, McDonald's Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill. (1981 sales: $7.6 billion), and to steal a march on third-ranked Wendy's International Inc. of Dublin, Ohio (sales last year: $1.4 billion).

Burger King asserts that unlike McDonald's or Wendy's, it flame-broils its hamburgers. Playing upon this claim, the company's commercials charged that McDonald's burgers are smaller when they hit the griddle, and that customers overwhelmingly prefer broiled to fried burgers. In one typical commercial, a shocked, beribboned little girl sits on a bench in front of a Burger King outlet and proclaims: "Unbelievable! Luckily I know a perfect way to show McDonald's how I feel. I go to Burger King!"

Even before the commercials were broadcast, company officials at McDonald's headquarters showed how they felt by slapping Burger King with a lawsuit in Miami federal court, charging deceptive advertising. So-called comparative advertising of consumer products has become increasingly common in recent years, but Burger King's drive was a fast-food first on a national level, and it plainly rankled the industry leader.

McDonald's executives were particularly incensed that Burger King's taste and quality claims were apparently based upon market surveys specifically commissioned by the Miami company. This, they said, made the claims not only suspect but biased and purposely misleading. Besides, charged a McDonald's spokesman, broiling is not all that Burger King does to its burgers; after the meat is flame-cooked, the patties are kept warm in steam cabinets and then reheated in microwave ovens just before serving. The implication: if a McDonald's Big Mac is greasy, then a Burger King Whopper is soggy.

Meanwhile, Wendy's weighed in with its own beef, claiming in a $25 million federal suit that Burger King's ads are false and misleading. Wendy's officials contend that their burgers are actually the best tasting of the lot, since they are made from fresh meat whereas both McDonald's and Burger King patties begin with frozen meat. Wendy's has also called for a "national taste test" among actual hamburger eaters to settle the searing issue once and for all.

At week's end lawyers for all three firms were still quarreling in court, the Burger King ads were still running on television, and no one seemed to be developing much of an appetite for a national hamburger eat-off.

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