Big King
The Big King sandwich is one of the major hamburger products sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King, and was part of its menu for more than twenty years. As of March 2019, it is sold in the United States under its 1997 Big King XL formulation. During its testing phase in 1996–1997, it was originally called the Double Supreme and was configured similarly to the McDonald's Big Mac—including a three-piece roll. It was later reformulated as a more standard double burger during the latter part of product testing in 1997. It was given its current name when the product was formally introduced in September 1997, but maintained the more conventional double cheeseburger format.
The product was renamed King Supreme in 2001 when it was slightly reformulated as part of a menu restructuring during a period of corporate decline. A later restructuring eliminated the King Supreme in favor of its new BK Stacker line of sandwiches. When the Stacker line was discontinued in the United States shortly after, the Big King returned in November 2013 as a permanent product.
Despite being off the menu in the United States for several years, the product was still sold in several other countries under several names during the interim of its unavailability in the United States. One such example sold by BK's European arm of the company is a larger version of the sandwich called the Big King XXL, based on the company's Whopper sandwich. The Big King XXL is part of a line of larger double cheeseburgers known as the BK XXL line; the XXL line was the center of controversy over product health standards and advertising in Spain when first introduced.
There was a chicken variant of the sandwich in the United States and Canada. To promote continuing interest in the product, Burger King occasionally releases limited-time variants on the Big King.
The burger was introduced by Australian Burger King franchise Hungry Jack's in 2020 under the name Big Jack, with a slightly altered recipe and a controversial marketing campaign that highlighted its similarity to the Big Mac, leading to a trademark infringement lawsuit being filed by McDonalds.
History
Initial product run
The sandwich that would eventually become the Big King was preceded by a similar sandwich called the Double Supreme cheeseburger. Burger King's take on rival McDonald's well-known Big Mac sandwich was released as a test product in January 1996 when McDonald's was having difficulties within the American market. Hoping to build on improving sales of Burger King and take advantage of perceived market weakness of McDonald's, the chain introduced the Double Supreme as part of an advertising blitz against its competitor. Originally, the burger had a look and composition that resembled the Big Mac: it had two beef patties, "King" sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a three-part sesame seed bun. Because its patties are flame-broiled and larger than McDonald's grill fried and seasoned patties, and the formulation of the "King Sauce" was different from McDonald's "Special sauce", the sandwich had a similar, but not exact, taste and different caloric content. The sandwich was reformulated after the initial test run, removing the center roll. The Double Supreme was advertised with a direct attack on the Big Mac, using the claims that it had 75% more beef and less bread than the McDonald's sandwich. A review of the Burger King sandwich by the Chicago Tribune verified these claims and also stated that the ingredients of the newer sandwich were of better quality than those of the McDonald's product.After the initial testing period, the sandwich was renamed the Big King and added to the national menu at the end of the summer of 1997the first major product introduction since the company added its BK Broiler chicken sandwich in 1990. Unlike the Double Supreme, the new Big King lacked the interior bread piece the Big Mac had, and the advertising used to promote the Big King continued to utilize the 75% more beef claim. However, the new sandwich was introduced while the company was dealing with a highly publicized beef recall from one of its key suppliers, Hudson Foods, and had to deal with accusations that the introduction was designed to distract the public and media from the recall. The sandwich was initially introduced in the United States at a 99¢ price point, which helped propel sales to nearly twice the estimated volume and causing many locations to sell out of the burger patties used to produce the sandwich.
McDonald's initially downplayed the new sandwich, with a spokesman stating that there was only one place to get the real Big Mac. Despite McDonald's claims that the sandwich was not a major issue for the company, its highly promoted Arch Deluxe sandwich was not a success and its "Campaign 55" promotion, which reduced the price of certain sandwiches to 55¢, was eliminated after franchisees complained that it had failed to boost sales. Against McDonald's struggles, Burger King's successful introduction of the Big King was later paired with a newly introduced, improved type of french fry in November of the same year. Along with these two product introductions, the company began a massive financial investment in product development across all parts of its menu which, in total, provided a boost in the chain's market performance. The mirrored failure and success for the two companies showed itself in the market share of the United States fast-food market: Burger King's share rose a percentage point, to 19.2%, while McDonald's share slipped 0.4 points, to 41.9% by the end of 1997. The McDonald's drop capped a three-year decline in the larger chain's market share in the United States, which stood at 42.3% at the start of 1995.
By 2001, Burger King's chain-wide sales were lagging. Corporate indifference from parent Diageo coupled with lagging sales at larger franchises caused by declining consumer demand for its products led the company to initiate a menu redesign to try to lure customers back into stores. The company decided to introduce a series of new product launches in a planned menu revamp. Along with a new Whopper-based burger designed to compete with McDonald's Quarter Pounder, a new breakfast sandwich designed to compete with the McMuffin sandwich, and other new products, Burger King introduced a reformulated Big King replacement called the King Supreme. The new sandwich's ingredients were basically the same as the Big King, but the King Sauce used in the sandwich was reformulated to, according to company claims, enhance the savory nature of the grilled burger patties Burger King uses in its sandwiches. This knock-off driven menu reorganization was designed to better compete with a similar menu expansion at McDonald's, called the New Tastes Menu, introduced earlier the same year.
BK Stackers
Burger King changed ownership in 2002 when Diageo sold its interest in the company to a group of investment firms led by TPG Capital. After assuming ownership, TPG's newly appointed management team began focusing menu development and advertising on a very narrow demographic group, young men aged 20–34 who routinely ate at fast food restaurants several times per month which the chain identified as the "super fan". Amid this new super-fan focused menu expansion the chain introduced its new BK Stacker sandwich in late 2006, a family of sandwiches featuring the same set of toppings served as a single, double, triple or quadruple hamburger. The Stacker line was part of a series of larger, more calorie-laden products introduced by the company to entice the super-fan into the chain's restaurants. These new additions helped propel same store profits for more than sixteen quarters.The Stacker consisted of anywhere from one to four beef patties, American cheese, bacon and a Thousand-Island dressing variant called Stacker sauce served on a sesame seed bun. The new sandwiches had a muted reaction in several reviews—Chowhound.com readers rated the Quad Stacker as one of the most over-the-top gluttonous burgers in a poll, while the Impulsive Buy stated that the sandwich was much like any other bacon cheeseburger but meatier. Despite its lukewarm reception, an internet meme relating to the sandwich developed rather quickly. Customers would create an "Octo-Stacker" sandwich by purchasing two quad Stackers and mashing the two together sandwiches to create a sandwich with eight patties, eight slices of cheese and sixteen half pieces of bacon. They would then film themselves trying to eat the sandwich in under five minutes.
With the onset of the Great Recession in 2008–2009, this narrowly defined demographic-based sales plan faltered and sales and profits for the chain declined; Burger King's same-store comparable sales in the United States and Canada declined 4.6% in the three months ended September 30, while McDonald's posted same-store comparable sales growth of 2.5% within the United States. The Stacker line underwent a minor reformulation in 2011 that involved deleting the top layer of cheese and changing the amount of bacon in the sandwiches, and moving the sandwiches from the core section of its menu to the company's value menu. The changed ingredient list and pricing structure created a situation such that the distribution of ingredients did not scale at the same rate as increasing numbers of burger patties. Consumer Reports' blog The Consumerist noted that two single Stackers at $1.00 included more cheese and more bacon than one double Stacker for $2.00. Three single Stackers had 50% more cheese and double the bacon of one triple Stacker. The Stacker line and other related calorie-heavy menu items were dropped in 2012 when 3G Capital of Brazil bought the company and initiated a menu restructuring focusing on a broader demographic base.
BK Toppers
The BK Toppers line was a line of cheeseburgers introduced by Burger King in October 2011 as a limited time offer in North America. The sandwiches featured a new chopped beef patty made with a coarser grind than the company's hamburger patty. The three sandwiches included a larger version of Burger King's Rodeo Cheeseburger, one made with sautéed mushrooms and processed Swiss cheese and the Cheeseburger Deluxe. The cheeseburger deluxe consisted of lettuce, pickles, onions, American cheese and Stacker sauce in a combinations similar to the King Supreme.The sandwiches were a part of the new ownership's plans to expand its customer base beyond the 18- to 34-year-old demographic which it had been targeting over the previous several years. The product resurrected a previous name from the BK Hot Toppers line of sandwiches from the 1980s.