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Last year, Taco Bell cut a number of items from its menu, including two entrees that featured its seasoned potato bites: Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes and Spicy Potato Soft Taco. These two items will be back in restaurants on March 11, the chain said on Thursday.
Rumors of chopped potatoes began to swirl last summer after a Reddit user, identified as a verified employee, said potatoes were leaving the menu. Taco Bell quickly confirmed the news, leading to a stream of consternation online.
“Taco Bell getting rid of potatoes is worse than my parents’ divorce,” one person tweeted in July. “I don’t think I can forgive Taco Bell for taking potatoes off their menu,” wrote another. People have posted weeping emojis and heartbreaking emojis. A “petition that Taco Bell does NOT remove all potato items” from Change.org, among others, has garnered more than 5,000 signatures.
Potatoes were started off the Taco Bell menu in August.
“I feel like I’ve almost heard from everyone in the country about potato bites,” said Liz Matthews, global director of food innovation at Taco Bell. “He’s the one that really touched people,” she said, noting that Taco Bell had received more comments on this particular decision than expected.
Taco Bell usually doesn’t go up or pull a beloved menu item. Typically, the brand tests and talks to consumers before making such a decision, Matthews said.
But after the pandemic-related shutdowns in March, Taco Bell had to direct all customer traffic to its offsite channels, including drive-thru. In order to ease the pressure on his operations and help customers get behind the wheel quickly, he made menu cuts.
It takes a lot of time and effort to make the potato bites, Matthews said, so they had to leave. Giving up potatoes “was painful,” she said, stressing that it was the right thing to do at the time.
The loss has been particularly difficult for vegetarians, who already have limited choices in fast food. For some of them, Taco Bell is a reliable benchmark. In 2019, the chain launched a vegetarian section on its menu to help guide customers to its vegetarian products. It also makes it easier to change the controls to remove meat.
Once an item is off the menu, it takes time to bring it back. Taco Bell has been discussing the return of the potato for the past three months or so, Matthews said. She plans to launch more potato items eventually, she added.
The channel is also teaming up with Beyond meat (BYND) to test a new product next year, he said Thursday.
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