Where Does Chick-Fil-A Get Its Pickles?

It's hard to argue that Chick-fil-A, for whatever other news swirls around the company, doesn't make an excellent chicken sandwich and provide high customer satisfaction while doing so. The restaurant has ranked first in customer ratings for nine straight years. It didn't become so popular so suddenly by accident, and the key to its success is its flagship chicken sandwich. True, Popeye's provided a worthy challenge, but what makes the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich stand out so much is its simplicity — just fried chicken, a bun, and pickles.

While the first two ingredients are self-explanatory, the pickles might be the key to the company's success, but do they really taste different from other fast food pickles, or is it just our imagination? It turns out it's not just you. Chick-fil-A's pickles are unique within the industry, and the reason why is its source — one particular supplier based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that the company has been using for quite a long time.

The most successful fast-food companies tend to pay attention to the little things. That's why McDonald's soda does taste better than other fast food locations and why its ketchup is so unique. Much of Chick-fil-A's success can be traced to a similar focus on product specificity. Its chicken is hand-cut chicken breast, and it's kind of fanatical about the fact it contains no antibiotics, making a 2019 commitment to "No Antibiotics Ever." The pickles are also a huge part of this — and not just because of the fan theory that Chick-fil-A chicken breasts are marinated in pickle juice before being breaded and cooked.

Chick-fil-A's pickles come from one source and one source only: Bay Valley Foods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's not quite clear how long the partnership has existed, but the two companies seem to have been working together for quite some time, as evidenced by the fact Chick-fil-A's pickles have possessed a consistent level of quality for decades. (This is also not to be confused with the similarly-named Bay Center Foods, a Chick-fil-A subsidiary that produces the company's lemon juice.)

It turns out that the pickles Chick-fil-A gets from Bay Valley are a little different from standard pickles. The company selects cucumbers specifically for size and texture, of course, but what really makes the difference is the brine. A special combination of vinegar, garlic, dill, and seasonings (we don't quite know which ones, as this is a trade secret) creates a pickle that does not taste remotely like that of any of the company's fast food competitors, with just the right level of acid to complement rather than overpower its signature product.

The result is a pickle that seems perfectly matched to the sandwich that makes use of it. Though there's no hard evidence confirming whether the pickle juice-marination theory is correct (the company will neither confirm nor deny it), if it were true, it would make even more sense as to why the flavors seem so harmonious. One thing is for sure: Bay Valley Foods makes a really good pickle.