Hardee’s Introduces Huge Breakfast Burrito

First posted on 10-17-2007

Ready to start your day out with a 920 calorie breakfast that also delivers a full day’s worth of fat?

St. Louis based Hardee’s - the company that brought us the 1,420 calorie Thickburger and an 1,100 calorie chicken salad – has introduced its newest product, the Country Breakfast Burrito.

The new breakfast item contains two egg omelets, and is packed with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy all wrapped up in a large flour tortilla.

The Country Breakfast Burrito is part of Hardee’s big sandwich line, which also includes the behemoth Monster Thickburger, a conglomeration of two hefty slabs of ground beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese coated with mayonnaise and served on a buttered bun.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which advocates health and nutrition, calls Hardee’s big sandwiches “food porn.”

Jayne Hurley, the center’s senior nutritionist, refers to the massive burrito as the “country breakfast bomb.” She said the product represents half a day’s worth of calories and the maximum amount of fat recommended for the entire day.

But the head of Hardee’s marketing efforts, Brad Haley, offers no apologies. “We don’t try to hide what these are,” he said. “When consumers go to other fast-food places they feel like they’ve got to buy two of their breakfast sandwiches or burritos to fill up. This is really designed to fill you up.”

He added that the Country Breakfast Burrito gives patrons the same kind of big breakfast they would seek at a sit-down restaurant, but that his sandwich “makes this big breakfast portable.”

Hardee’s views its core customer group as young men ages 18 to 34. The company said it was trying to provide the kinds of foods its core customers want.

Hardee’s Country Breakfast Burrito is sold for around $2.69 by itself. Of course, if you are extra hungry, you could get the combo that includes coffee and hash rounds for just a buck forty more.