- McDonald’s re-introduced Snack Wrap is proving so popular that some restaurants were running out of lettuce. The menu item made its return on July 10, after being cancelled nine years ago.
The return of the Snack Wrap is proving to be even more of a big deal than McDonald’s was hoping for.
The Wall Street Journal reports some locations of the fast-food chain have been running low on lettuce and other toppings since the customer favorite made its return. McDonald’s tells Fortune that the shortages were temporary and have been resolved.
The Snack Wrap made its return on July 10 after a nine-year absence. (Franchise owners told corporate that the item took workers too long to make, cutting efficiencies. Some stores defied the menu item’s cancellation, selling them up until 2020, but by that point, they were completely gone.)
While there have been plenty of consumer petitions to bring it back, the company has resisted until this year. On the day the Snack Wrap returned, Placer.ai reports visits to McDonald’s locations were 11.4% higher than the usual average on that day of the week. The traffic surges continued for several days.
McDonald’s might have the OG Snack Wrap, but it’s hardly the only restaurant to offer one these days. Wendy’s began offering a version of the treat in 2023.
The surge in demand for the Snack Wrap brings to mind the 2019 introduction of a chicken sandwich from Popeye’s. The chain had what it thought was a two-month supply of chicken sandwich materials on hand when it launched the product. As social media chatter exploded, it exhausted those in just two weeks.
After that, Popeyes took the unusual approach of encouraging people to bring their own buns to the stores and create the sandwich themselves, using chicken tenders.