FOOD NEWS
Before Ordering Wendy's Chili, Here's A Fact You Should Know
By Stacie Adams
Wendy's uses fresh ground beef in its burgers and has developed an off-putting solution for the meat's short shelf-life — incorporate old, unsold burger patties into the chili.
If you find this fact a little too disgusting to be true, Entrepreneur actually reported on the practice of making Wendy's chili, which a staff member at the chain demonstrated.
They posted a video on social media showing the employee combining unsold burger patties with water, crushing them, and then placing them in a bag for storage in the freezer.
This wasn't just a rogue employee — an official presentation from Wendy's exhibits the same process. Unfortunately, neither video is currently available to view online.
Daily Meal reached out to a Wendy's location and found that cooked burgers under heat lamps are subject to a timer that indicates when the burgers can no longer be sold as-is.
This is presumably when they get recycled into chili, but Wendy's staff said they couldn't provide the exact time that burgers can sit out before they get pulled from the line-up.