I’ve always loved new stuff. A new car with that new car smell. A fresh, clean shower curtain right out of the package. Well, you get the idea. Which is why today I’m going to talk about what’s new at the fast food joints. Luckily, their food has improved to the point that it doesn’t smell like fresh plastic….

Yes, I do go to a fast food restaurant occasionally, maybe once a month. And it is nice to know that they’re making an effort to change their menus with new and exciting things to lure you in. Some are very successful, and some are not.

I was personally surprised that some high-fat, high-calorie offerings were doing very well, while some low-fat, low calorie offerings were tanking in the marketplace. I thought people would pay anything to lose weight, even if it didn’t work. But I guess this segment is hit-and-miss, too.

New products that do well are the lifeblood of the $10.5 billion a year fast food industry. The big chains are striving to invent new items to offer to the public so they can grab market share in a stagnant economy, because overall fast-food growth has slowed.

What do they do to entice us? Sonic Restaurants have offered a big winner, namely a pancake on a stick that is rolled around a sausage like a corn dog. They don’t have any Sonics around here yet, but this item has become their number one breakfast seller. It’s not very low-fat, but it sure sounds good.

Even old stand-by Burger King has hit the jackpot with its introduction of the Chicken Whopper. In a short three months, the Chicken Whopper has emerged as the most successful new item ever for Burger King, selling 50 million sandwiches. As far as “healthiness” goes, it’s probably a little better than a regular Whopper.

This chain is no stranger to a huge flop, though. Burger King introduced a new, crispier French fry by coating them with potato starch about 3 years ago. Besides tasting pretty bad, they didn’t sell. You win some, you lose some.

Taco Bell has introduced products that turned off the public, too. They brought out the Border Lites foods that were supposed to be good for you. But sometimes, people don’t want fast food that’s good for you. They tasted blah. And this from a company that fired the Taco Bell dog to put out some pretty tasteless commercials. They were successful with the introduction of their new Zesty Chicken Border Bowl. They went nationwide with this item in June, and it looks like a sure-fire winner.

Sometimes, readjusting a product can turn it around. Take KFC. They brought out Popcorn Chicken back in 1995. It was a concoction of ground chicken parts. They were about like everyone else’s chicken nugget. But lately they’ve changed Popcorn Chicken to have all white meat. It’s now viewed as a quality item. And gosh, it took off for the stratosphere.

Then there’s the big guy, McDonalds. What has the number one fast food chain offered its customers lately? Well, they tried the Arch Deluxe. Remember that one? It was supposed to be the burger for “adults only.” I remember the commercials and thought they were strange. That flop cost McDonalds nearly $200 million. It was regarded as the industry’s worst-ever new product failure.

But all was not lost. It seems McDonalds hit upon a new item recently that is so popular that they’ve had to stop promoting it. It’s called the grilled Chicken Flatbread Sandwich. They say the pita-like soft flatbread is the real winner. The other ingredients sure sound tasty-chicken, tomato, lettuce, grilled onions, pepper jack cheese and a creamy secret sauce dressing.

I got a book of coupons in the mail about a month ago, and I was unable to use them because they were always sold out of this sandwich.

Did you know that McDonalds carries the number one item ever launched in fast food history? Give up? Well, it’s the Egg McMuffin, and it made McDonalds the leader in fast food breakfasts that it is today.

How about little old Arby’s? Their new Market Fresh Deli Sandwiches account for 18% of overall sales. That’s a really big amount for such a new item, introduced in mid-2001. The public is really scarfing them up.

On to Subway. Am I the only one who isn’t making the connection between eating Subway subs and losing weight? You see, they’ve got this former fat guy who ate Subway subs all the time and dropped a ton. Of course, he also exercised and wasn’t slathering the subs with double cheese and extra mayo. But somehow, that message gets lost in the commercials. If you ask someone off the street about this, they’ll tell you that, “Subway subs made that fat guy lose a lot of weight.”

It’s a great marketing gimmick, but people only get part of the message-the part that sells subs. So now Subway has become the Weight Watchers of fast food chains. Subway’s same-store sales zoomed 31% since the commercials started. Their latest offering is the Sweet Onion Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich. It’s a big hit. Many stores have been running out.

I guess my advice here has to be to eat wisely, as always. It’s perfectly fine to stop at a fast food restaurant, but be careful to look at the fat content of the items you’re buying, as well as the total quantity you are eating. Just because an item is “low fat” doesn’t mean you can eat twice as much.