Innovation was not the key to success among chicken chains in 2025

Chicken chain sales

Many restaurant chains have ramped up their development of new menu items in recent years as they struggle to get the attention of consumers who are increasingly cautious about how they spend their money.

But innovation isn’t necessarily what they’re looking for when it comes to chicken.

Most of the fastest growing chicken chains, in terms of sales, in 2025 didn’t introduce a whole lot of new menu items.

The main innovations at the fastest-growing chain among the 200 largest concepts, Dave’s Hot Chicken, whose sales grew 51% year-over-year according to Technomic Top 500 data, were the introduction of sliders and Dave’s Not Chicken, breaded and fried cauliflower, which might have addressed the veto vote of vegetarians, but was unlikely a big sales driver — that would be the chain’s 52.3% unit growth.

Bb.q Chicken, the second fastest growing chain, with a sales jump of 24.8% on 10.6% unit growth, simply rolled out an open-faced sandwich of four boneless chicken pieces on Texas toast with choice of flavored mayonnaise.

Chicken Salad Chick grew sales by 15% and unit count by 13.1% with just its usual rotating lineup of seasonal chicken salad.

And Raising Cane’s, now the 16th largest chain in the country, having grown sales by 10.6% last year amid 10.3% unit growth, famously doesn’t innovate. It serves tenders, Texas toast, its signature sauce, fries, and that’s about it.

By contrast, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, whose sales dipped by 0.5% even amid 1.5% sales growth, engaged in all sorts of culinary innovation ranging from reformulating its wings for a milder base flavor to introducing cheesy bites with marinara sauce, and rolling out a new line of snack wraps.

It also made attention grabbing moves like its pickle menu — featuring fried chicken in a tangy pickle glaze, fried pickles, and even pickle lemonade — and a collaboration with YouTube series Hot Ones, featuring a lineup of chicken items with an escalating selection of hot sauces, from relatively mild pickled garlic Sriracha to The Last Dab — Hot Ones’ hottest sauce.

Popeyes even did an extreme LTO, for one day at five locations only, in partnership with Don Julio tequila, featuring fried chicken and wings marinated in the spirit.

Those marketing efforts apparently garnered more attention than sales, and in an earnings call earlier this year Josh Kobza, CEO of parent company Restaurant Brands International, said, “We can shift some of our marketing and innovation focus. You've seen things like (Hot Ones’) Dippers and pickles, which gain a lot of customer interest, but sometimes don't drive the sustained sales growth that we'd like to see. So, you're probably going to see us shift back a bit of that focus to some of our more core platforms.”

KFC also put its culinary team to work with the rollout of potato wedges and croquettes, called Mashed Potato Poppers, a chicken & waffles LTO, a new honey barbecue sauce, hot & spicy wings, fried pickles, and more only to see sales fall by 4.6% as its unit count fell by 4%.

Strategic innovation

But the picture’s not as black-and-white as that. Some chains demonstrated that strategic, on-brand innovation can complement growth. Jollibee saw a 17% sales jump amid 6.7% unit growth while rolling out new tenders, revamping its beverage program with help from beverage technology company Botrista, introducing a new line of burgers, and offering a Korean barbecue chicken collab with musical group Katseye that won it a Nation’s Restaurant News MenuMasters Award.

Wingstop grew its unit count by 17.3% and sales by 11% while reformulating its tenders to make them crispier, and rolling out a variety of sauces such as sweet chile glaze and fiery lime, and rubs such as smoky chipotle and Mexican street spice.

And Chick-fil-A saw sales grow by 5.2% and unit count by 5.7% while introducing seasonal beverages such as peppermint chip frosted coffee for the holidays and peach frosted lemonade for the summer, plus flavored lemonades, a barbecue bacon sandwich, a grilled chicken sandwich with Colby-Jack cheese, lettuce, and tomato, a line of sandwiches on pretzel buns, and more.

So while innovation didn’t seem to be the name of the game for chicken chains in 2025, some of them did benefit from introducing items that stayed on-brand.