Natural Cut FriesLast fall, Wendy’s launched its new French fries, the Natural Cut Fries in Sea Salt. Currently, this product is already being promoted in TV advertisement and print media. Part of the company’s selling point for this product is it being ‘natural.’

According to Ken Calwell, the company’s CMO, when referring to the new fries, the term ‘natural’ refers to how the fries are being cut in the processing facility. Usually, in fast food fries-processing, potatoes are subjected to steaming at such high temperatures that the skins burst. With Wendy’s Natural Cut Fries, this part of the process is skipped and instead the potatoes go directly into high-tech equipment where they are cut with the skins on. The skins add about 1 gram of fiber per medium order of fries.

As for the fries being ‘All-Natural,’ this seems to be the case. Like other fast food fries, Wendy’s Natural Cut fries are exposed to sodium acid pyrophosphate (SAPP) in order to prevent them from turning brown once they have been fried twice (once during processing and once at the food store). The fries are also powdered with dextrose for the same purpose. The frying oil that is used by fast food stores, including Wendy’s, contains dimethylpolysiloxane to help keep the oil from foaming after repeated use.

Despite these ‘un-natural’ methods though, a number of people can attest to the fact that Wendy’s Natural Cut fries do taste better. In a third party taste test that has been conducted, 56 percent of people voted that Wendy’s fries tasted better than McDonald’s fries, which got 39 percent of the votes. Four percent of the voters did not have any preference. Almost ten percent of orders at Wendy’s stores included the fries.