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Wendy’s Says Changes Are Coming

Wendy’s is making some changes to its menu, but the company says it’s not raising prices.

The exterior of a Wendy’s restaurant.

© Andreistanescu/Dreamstime.com

Is Wendy’s raising its prices? Not exactly, but customers may soon see some changes on the fast-food chain’s menu.

In February, Wendy’s caused an uproar when it announced that it would be testing digital menus at its drive-throughs, as well as “dynamic pricing,” or “surge pricing.” Dynamic pricing is the practice of raising the price on goods and services during times when demand is highest. It’s already used at places like concert venues, bowling alleys, and movie theaters. Hotels, airlines, and ride-sharing apps like Uber use dynamic pricing as well. When Wendy’s used the term in its announcement, people took that to mean that hungry customers would soon see higher prices if they drove up to a Wendy’s at the wrong time.

But Wendy’s has since said that its announcement was misunderstood. The company says it has no plans to raise prices when demand is highest. Instead, it plans to lower prices when demand is low.

“We said these [digital] menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items,” a Wendy’s spokesperson told NBC News. “Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”

Wendy’s claims that the plan would benefit its customers. Robert Shumsky, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, told National Public Radio (NPR) that this might be true.

“[Wendy’s] talked about, for example, getting more breakfast customers in,” Shumsky said. “They might actually reduce breakfast prices at certain times in order to encourage people to come during what they currently have as relatively low-demand periods.”

If Wendy’s goes ahead with the plan, there wouldn’t be any changes until 2025 or later.

Fun Fact

© Jeff Goode—Toronto Star/Getty Images

Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas and his daughter, Wendy. Yes, Wendy is real!

The first Wendy’s opened in 1969. The menu offered five items: hamburgers, chili, French fries, soft drinks, and the Frosty frozen dessert.

Happy Pi Day!

The number pi has an infinite number of digits!

 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The number pi has an infinite number of digits!

March 14 is Pi Day, which has nothing to do with pies but is still pretty cool to think about. Pi Day honors pi, a number that starts as 3.1415926535 and has an infinite number of digits. So far, pi has been calculated to more than 50 trillion digits to the right of the decimal point! But, understandably, most people shorten pi to 3.14, And, since you can write March 14 as “3/14,” that date is celebrated around the world as Pi Day.

If you’ve learned about pi in school, you may already be thinking of a circle. Pi is a somewhat magical ratio related to the measurements of a circle. Let’s say you have a pizza pie (that’s pie, not pi) shaped like a circle. If you measure across the widest part of the pizza, that’s the diameter. And if you measure all the way around the pizza, that’s the circumference.

© Zitramon/Dreamstime.com; Composite illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Here’s where the magic comes in: If you divide the circumference by the diameter, you’ll get a number that’s very close to 3.14, no matter what size your pizza is. And this is true for any circle.

The circumference and diameter of a pizza are given along with an equation in which circumference is divided by diameter to get 3.14.

© Zitramon/Dreamstime.com; Composite illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

If all this talk about pie is making you hungry, there’s good news. Many people celebrate Pi Day by eating pie. Hey, why not?

Own a Piece of the Business

The logos of Church’s Chicken, Burger King, and other fast food chains are shown.

© Luca Marella/Dreamstime.com

Have you ever thought you’d like to run a business someday? One way to do it is to buy a franchise, the right to sell an existing product at a particular location. Wendy’s and many other fast-food companies operate through local franchises.

You can learn more about how franchises work at Britannica!

WORD OF THE DAY

brouhaha

PART OF SPEECH:
noun
Definition:

: great excitement or concern about something

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