Dan Pashman: This episode contains a little bit of light profanity.

Dan Pashman: I'm imagining the two of you in a lab that's sort of in a castle on top of a mountain ... [BRETT PLUSKALOWSKI LAUGHS] there's a thunderstorm, so there's lightning crashes and thunder, you know, and all that. And Shawn, you're rolling out the Cheez-It dough and Brett's saying, "Make it bigger!", and you're saying, "I can't make it any bigger!", and Brett's saying, "Come on man, add another inch!"

Brett Pluskalowski: Oh my God. Yeah, that's exactly it. 

Dan Pashman: And the lightning crashes and the thunder, and your hair is standing up.

Shawn Busse: It's pretty accurate. Although [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] this all happened ...

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Shawn Busse: This all happened during a COVID ... 

Dan Pashman: Oh!  [LAUGHING]

Shawn Busse: So it was more of a virtual mountaintop ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. Today, we're bringing you a rare behind-the-scenes look at a collaboration between two giant American food brands: Taco Bell and Cheez-It. Now, I’ve long been fascinated with how big food companies come up with new menu items. I’ve interviewed the inventor of Pizza Hut stuffed crust pizza. I’ve talked with Subway’s head chef about how they decide what order to stack the components of a new sandwich in. And of course, I tried my own hand at culinary R&D when I invented cascatelli.

Dan Pashman: I think what interests me about all this is that for a company to come up with a new product, they have to do two things that I’ve always loved doing: First, looking at a food and wondering how it can be improved and then obsessing over the tiniest details of how to improve it. But giant corporations take the process to a whole other level. 

Dan Pashman: Take for instance the culinary concoctions we’re talking about today. Over the summer Taco Bell released two Cheez-It-centric items: The Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme, and the Big Cheez-It Tostada. While these may sound like foods dreamt up in a dorm room, the reality is that getting them to market took five years, about 500 chefs, food scientists, taste testers, engineers, packaging designers, and more, and dozens of ideas thrown into the trash, like so many paper gordita wrappers. 

Dan Pashman: Big companies have these incredibly elaborate development processes, partly because, as you’ll hear, making a food for mass production comes with unique challenges. But also in part because they want to ensure the new creations will be a success.

Dan Pashman: So in this particular case, how well did that process actually work? We will find out. And I should add real quick, Taco Bell and Cheez-It didn’t pay us to make this episode. As I said, I’m just super interested in how companies like this work. So let me introduce you to the guys who may be most responsible for this collab. On the Taco Bell side is Brett Pluskalowski, he's a research and development chef manager.

Brett Pluskalowski: I've launched the toasted cheddar chalupa, quesalupa, the naked chicken chalupa ... as you can see, a theme here.

Dan Pashman: You're a chalupa specialist.

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah. [LAUGHS] It was my favorite thing in college, yes. 

Dan Pashman: Brett's been at Taco Bell for nearly 10 years, he works at their headquarters in Irvine, California, and his whole job is to come up with new menu items. Hence, that impressive list of chalupas.

Dan Pashman: And then on the Cheez-It side is Shawn Busse. He’s a director of R&D at Kellanova. Kellanova is a spinoff company of Kellogg's that was formed pretty recently. Kellogg’s kept all the breakfast cereals, Kellanova took everything else — so among many products they own Pop-Tarts, Eggo waffles, Nutri-Grain bars, Pringles, and yes, Cheez-Its. Shawn is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, one of Kellanova’s main campuses. And he has his own impressive resume in his 20-plus years creating new foods, starting at Nabisco:

Shawn Busse: I worked on the Uh-Oh! Oreo, which is kind of the reverse Oreo. So it had a vanilla cookie with a chocolate center. My first project that I ever worked on as a product developer was a sugar-free chocolate chip cookie that I was developing for SnackWell's. And we had a trained panel of sensory scientists that worked with us at Nabisco at the time. And I was working to get some early prototypes in front of them. And so I got my first iteration of samples in front of them, and I was, like, so proud. I was, like, couldn't wait to hear how all this glowing feedback that I was going to be receiving [Dan Pashman: Right.] from these folks. And unfortunately, the first ... The very first bit of feedback that I heard was from a woman. I can picture the exact moment. She said, “Have you ever considered going into marketing? [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] Product development isn't for everyone.” And that was my feedback and that the realization for me that, okay, I think I'm going to have to get some pretty thick skin in this [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] role because I need to be humbled .... And you know what? She was absolutely right. That first iteration was awful.

Dan Pashman: Shawn did eventually nail the sugar-free chocolate chip cookie and got it on shelves, by adjusting the bake time and fixing other issues with texture. Now, it’s not every day that I get to talk to R&D folks from two of the biggest American food brands, people whose work, I think I made clear, is kind of an obsession of mine. This was especially exciting because Shawn on the Kellanova side, he’s got a connection to cereal, and I love cereal. So before we got into the story of their collaboration, I had to pitch them on an idea:

Dan Pashman: I got a lot of opinions about cereal combinations.

Brett Pluskalowski: That’s awesome! Let's all talk about it.

Shawn Busse: We would love to hear your cereal combination ideas.

Dan Pashman: Am I right? Frosted Mini-Wheats. That's a Kellogg's cereal, right?

Shawn Busse: That's us. Yep.

Dan Pashman: Okay. My idea is to use Frosted Mini-Wheats and then something with honey in it. All right? You must have some honey, grainy cereals in the portfolio.

Shawn Busse: We could hook that up for sure.

Dan Pashman: And then maybe a granola component. You bring these things together. Now this ... It might seem a little bit out there for Kellogg's, but just follow me here, Shawn.

Shawn Busse: Uh-huh.

Dan Pashman: It's baklava.

Shawn Busse: Ohhh. Yes.

Brett Pluskalowski: I can see that.

Dan Pashman: You get the ... 

Shawn Busse: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: You get the phyllo dough vibes from the mini-wheats ... 

Shawn Busse: That’s baklava!

Dan Pashman: You get the honey and you get the nuts. You will have baklava and that will be so much more interesting!

Shawn Busse: So I'll point you in the direction of our bare naked granola, as you're investigating your [Dan Pashman: Okay.] ideal combo. So dig there, you'll find some things with the Frosted Mini-Wheat combo, I think we'd be onto something.

Dan Pashman: All right. 

Shawn Busse: The baklava approach.

Dan Pashman: All right.

Brett Pluskalowski: How are you going to market that?

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

Brett Pluskalowski: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Yeah, let's play-act to this. Let's pretend we're ... 

Brett Pluskalowski: Okay. Okay. 

Dan Pashman: We're in an R&D meeting. We're sitting around a table. No bad ideas point in the phase, right? People come in, they start throwing out all kinds of ideas. So I just came into the meeting room. I just threw out an idea. Now, how do you respond? Like and be as hard as you need to be on me.

Shawn Busse: Well, first of all, I mean, the insight that you're touching on is a fantastic one because mixing cereals, I mean, people do it all the time. And we've realized that this is a natural activity that people are doing, so why not help them by combining some things that they're already well aware of? I, personally, am a cereal mixer. Now, I like the idea of granola adding a little textural combination there and, you know, maybe some guilty pleasures too. You know, like Froot Loops. Why not throw in some exciting visual and taste components there, too?

Brett Pluskalowski: In your mind, how would you actually ... How would you label it and how would you market that type of cereal?

Dan Pashman: I would probably want to do some focus grouping and researching to know just …

Brett Pluskalowski: There you go. There you go.

Dan Pashman: How widespread is knowledge of baklava?

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah, like you hit it on the head. Let's say like, "Is baklava the right flavor profile?" But if you take into account, hey, maybe there's — is it nuts? Like what, is it texture? Is it texture play? How do we build on that idea to really make it and, like, maximize it? That's what it's all about.

Shawn Busse: There's always lots of reasons why, and barriers that stand in the way, especially early on in the conceptual phase of things. You know, well, we make Frosted Mini-Wheats in this plant and we make granola in this other plant. How do we effectively bring those together and what would the price point — all of those things that could, like, sink things, but at the beginning, it's gotta be, "Well, how can we, right?"

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Dan Pashman: These are the things that Brett and Shawn have to think about every day when they develop new food products. It’s so much more than, does this taste good? It’s also, can we produce this on a mass scale, at a cost that works? And if it’s a bit new and different, how are we going to explain it to people to get them excited about it? It was this last question that tripped up one of Brett’s ideas a few years back.

Brett Pluskalowski: I made a bacon taco shell and it's not — it wasn't just a weave. Like you see, like you can take, you know, strips of bacon and make a weave out of it. I, actually, made a bacon taco shell. Like it, literally, was made from, you know, pork belly.

Dan Pashman: Like a single piece of bacon.

Brett Pluskalowski: Correct. So like almost like you had a, like a porchetta that was, like, sliced really thin and then we made it into, like, a U-shape. It was bomb. It was so good.

Dan Pashman: It was, like, sort of rolled and you could slice circles, almost like you would slice a deli meat. 

Brett Pluskalowski: Exactly. 

Dan Pashman: So you get a circle of bacon, flat circle, and then you could fold it like you would a taco.

Brett Pluskalowski: Correct. I mean, think about it. You could do breakfast. You could do, like, a BLT. And at the end of the day, like it didn't, you know, concept test well, because I think a lot of the concept is about, like, what I'm assuming it's going to be and tastes like. And people don't see bacon. They see it as a strip, they don't see it as a round. So it's overcoming that hurdle.

Dan Pashman: So the reason why that didn't get made was not because it didn't taste good. It wasn't because it didn't work. It was because the idea of bacon in that shape was too weird to people.

Brett Pluskalowski: I wouldn’t say it didn’t work. It worked. We just got to ... It’s just not time yet.

Dan Pashman: So you feel like the bacon thing could still happen?

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah. If people want it, I want to hear about it. Yeah. Let's do it. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: So sometimes the world isn’t ready for the foods Brett and Shawn dream up. But they keep dreaming. They told me that new ideas come from a lot of different sources. As Shawn mentioned, some of them come from customer behavior, like the idea of cereal mixing. Then there's a principle that Taco Bell calls "beautiful oops" and "hidden gems".

Brett Pluskalowski: It's like when you get fries, for example, and two are stuck together. They're not meant to be, but it's like this hidden gem, like, wow, I have, you know, two fries that are stuck together.

Dan Pashman: The term “beautiful oops” actually comes from a children’s book with that name by Barney Saltzberg. Shawn says these ideas of beautiful oops and hidden gems are also something they talk about at Kellanova:

Shawn Busse: We actually have a product on the market that was launched a few years back called Cheez-It Extra Toasty. So Cheez-It Extra Toasty was born out of the fact that we kept getting consumer responses back on our consumer hotline and they said, "I really like the Cheez-Its that are a little burnt or extra toasty," right, a little bit browned on the edges or where they bubble up, maybe they get a little extra brown. And, you know, with our strict quality regimen, we try to watch for what we would call defects. And when things get a little extra toasty, you know, we would be calling those, you know, defects and we try to avoid that. Well, then we started hearing, well, consumers actually ... Some consumers really like that sort of thing. So we said, "Well, what if we made ... intentionally made all of the product extra toasty?", and it was a big hit and still is today. 

Dan Pashman: So consumer behavior and "beautiful oops" can inspire people like Brett and Shawn. But the initial lightbulb moment for this particular collaboration between Taco Bell and Cheez-It came from somewhere else.

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Dan Pashman: One day, in 2019, Brett was in the grocery store. He was off duty, shopping for his family, but for him, every trip to the supermarket is an R&D mission.

Brett Pluskalowski: And I went down the chip aisle and I saw this ... I saw this girl. This little girl screaming, crying to her mother that she wanted a box of Cheez-Its, and then, at the checkout, when I was paying, I saw three teenagers eating Cheez-Its. 

Dan Pashman: And for a lot of people, seeing a screaming child in the supermarket might send them in the other direction. But for Brett, all this was data. 

Brett Pluskalowski: It just hit me, like, I'm gonna make a taco shell out of a Cheez-It. And so I got out of the checkout, I went back into the aisle, and then I bought every Cheez-It that I could find, [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] like every flavor, like white cheddar, extra toasty, all that. I brought it back to the office, so on Monday morning, I started making prototypes.

Dan Pashman: Brett's a trained chef, so he used his culinary skills to make the closest thing he could to Cheez-It dough. He rolled out the dough flat and cut it into 6-inch rounds, like tortillas, then scored little squares into them, so it would look like the round taco shell was made out of a bunch of Cheez-Its fused together, as if there was a beautiful oops at the factory. He had his first prototype, so he baked it up and gave it a whirl.

Brett Pluskalowski: It tasted amazing, but it's a cracker. So, like, the end of the day, it's hard to eat. It shatters.

Dan Pashman: Right, so when you bite into it, it crumbles.

Brett Pluskalowski: Exactly.

Dan Pashman: Brett might have decided to give up on this idea right then and there. I mean, that happens a lot. He says the Taco Bell team generates about 4,000 ideas a year, and only about 40 make it into restaurants. You see, Taco Bell and Kellanova were already talking to each other about teaming up in some way. This kind of brand collab is a big thing right now. Sometimes it's really more of a stunt, like when Van Leeuwen made a Kraft Mac and Cheese Ice Cream. Others, though, are really meant to become permanent fixtures on the market, like Taco Bell’s own collab with Mountain Dew to create a flavor called Baja Blast. That iridescent beverage launched in 2004 and it's still around today. This latest collab between Taco Bell and Kellanova might have a shot at permanent menu status. 

Dan Pashman: And this is where Shawn enters the story. He heard there was this mad culinary scientist named Brett over at Taco Bell, who wanted to make a taco shell out of Cheez-Its, but the team was having trouble making something that didn't shatter when you bit into it. Shawn and his colleagues started putting their heads together.

Shawn Busse: Well, what if it wasn't a taco shell? What if it was something else? And so we kicked around some other ideas, too. And well, what if you just took our existing Cheez-its and laid them on a bed and then put things on top of it, [BRETT PLUSKALOWSKI LAUGHS] sort of à la nachos or something like that, but I mean — which by the way, are fantastic. But it didn't have the wow factor, I think, that we were after as well and what the Taco Bell and Cheez-It customers and consumers really desire. 

Dan Pashman: They kept riffing — if they couldn’t make a taco shell out of Cheez-Its, how else could they get Cheez-Its in there? Then Brett at Taco Bell had an epiphany:

Brett Pluskalowski: We were like, let's just do a big Cheez-It. Let's do a massive Cheez-It.

Dan Pashman: At this point, they didn’t know exactly how they’d use a Big Cheez-It, maybe in a quesadilla? Maybe in a tostada? Whatever happened though, they had a hunch they were onto something.

Dan Pashman: Brett and Shawn began working together more closely, combining their years of experience to come up with a concept that would work for both brands. The first thing they wanted to figure out: How giant should this giant Cheez-It be? They started working in their test kitchens. They took the official Cheez-It dough, rolled it out, and used a cookie cutter to make different sizes. And there was a lot more to consider beyond what makes for the best tostada. Remember, they have to be able to get these giant Cheez-Its to Taco Bell’s 7000+ restaurants all in one piece.

Shawn Busse: The bigger you make it — it's like, you know, if you transport a one-inch mirror, right, I mean, you can protect that really well. If you transport a mirror that's 50 feet long, you got to do a lot to make sure that doesn't break.

Brett Pluskalowski: We wanted the perfect product. At the end of the day we wanted the real Cheez-it. It is so key that you deliver on the actual product or else, you know, people are just going to call you out on it and it just — it has to deliver that to get the idea across. So if we are saying it is a Cheez-It has to be in its original form, right?

Shawn Busse: I think that's part of the authenticity too, right?

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah, exactly.

Shawn Busse: You know, and the wow factor of people is like saying, "Wow, this really is a cheese that's 16 times the size of a normal Cheez-It. I'm going to take a picture of this. I'm going to put it on my Instagram feed and everybody's gonna love me because I’ve tried this thing."

Dan Pashman: So after a lot of testing, they landed on a Cheez-It that would be 16 times the size of your normal grocery store Cheez-It, close to 5 inches by 5 inches. But now, they had to actually mass-produce that giant Cheez-It.

Shawn Busse: That is such more of a monumental task than most people would ever realize. So number one, you think about if you can visualize what a Cheez-It looks like, it's got that hole in the center.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Shawn Busse: And that is part of the design image of Cheez-It. It's what makes Cheez-It Cheez-It, everybody recognizes that. But that hole in the center actually plays a very functional role in how the Cheez-It bakes. It's basically a vent. As you're baking, you're driving off moisture, it evaporates, right? But that hole in the center becomes a vent to allow that to happen efficiently.

Dan Pashman: So like, as you're baking, the water in the dough evaporates, it creates steam. 

Shawn Busse: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: And if you don't have those little holes poked, you will, the whole thing will balloon.

Shawn: That's it. And when you make your Cheez-It 16 times bigger, now you've got a lot more moisture, that vapor that you've got to bake out of that cracker that's a lot further away from that vent than it was at the beginning, right?

Dan Pashman: Years ago, I went to the Manischewitz factory to do a story about matzah. Pretty much all crackers have some kind of ... 

Shawn Busse: They do. 

Dan Pashman: They told me it was called docking. Is that right?

Shawn Busse: That's called — they are called docker holes. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: That's right. 

Shawn Busse: So it's called docking the cracker and the holes are called docker holes. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Shawn Busse: So that's the scientific term. So we had to change the design to effectively bake in the same way that a Cheez-It does. And, but we still wanted it to look like a classic Cheez-It as well.

Dan Pashman: Did you have to, like, order new equipment to make this? 

Shawn Busse: Absolutely.

Dan Pashman: Oh, so you had to order a whole new Cheez-It machine.

Brett Pluskalowski: [LAUGHS] 

Shawn Busse: So we start in our pilot plant. We have our engineering teams that we can — I then go to them and say, "Hey, this guy ... This crazy guy, Brett, came to me with this idea ..." 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Shawn Busse: You know, and I said, "I need you to make a cutter for me that's 16 times the size of a Cheez-It," and we'd work with an engineer on what the docking pattern would look like and all of that sort of thing. And then we would test that in our pilot plant. So we did lots of iterations, different patterns of docking and things like that, different sizes of crackers until we were sort of zeroing in on something that was going to work effectively for what we needed to execute for Taco Bell. 

MUSIC

Shawn Busse: So we sort of landed on a design that has one larger docker hole in the center so that the design attribute would still stay there. But we do have some smaller docker holes on the Taco Bell Big Cheez-It.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: Just the process of figuring out how to manufacture the giant Cheez-It took nearly 5 months. Coming up, Shawn and Brett figure out exactly what to do with it — and customers start to share what they think. Then I go to Taco Bell to try it. Stick around.

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+++ BREAK +++

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Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. A few quick important announcements before we get back to the show: First, I’m going back on the road again in October! I'm doing a dinner event in Brooklyn at Edy’s Grocer with Edy Massih, who we had on the show this summer. I'll be in Toronto for a book talk and cooking demo with Food For You to Eat. Then heading back across the border into Canandaigua, NY for another book talk and a cooking class. And I'm teaming up with my friends at Milk Street for a virtual cooking class, so wherever you are, you can take part. There's more than I can list here, so just check out our events page at sporkful.com/events.

Dan Pashman: One more thing, please stay tuned till the end of this episode for a special segment with farmers from Nellie’s Free-Range Eggs! Did you know that chickens have fashion opinions? It's true. Stay tuned for the end to hear about it. 

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Dan Pashman: All right, let's get back to Brett from Taco Bell and Shawn from Cheez-It. When we left off, Shawn was putting the finishing touches on the Big Cheez-It. Remember, it's almost 5 inches by 5 inches. And given that size, Brett and Shawn decided a good direction would be to use it as the base for a tostada. So basically, take the giant Cheez-It and pile a bunch of toppings. But for Brett, there were still a lot of unanswered questions.

Brett Pluskalowski: And really, it was like, what is the right build? What goes on it? I looked at it with, like — [LAUGHS] it got weird. I looked at it with steak, with chicken, with different, like, mayo-based aiolis that we have. It didn't deliver on the cheese flavor. It over — everything else overpowered it. And you have to have the Cheez-It shine. You have to have that flavor coming through. You want it to be the best of both brands. So I remember I was with some of my team, we were in one of the kitchens and we tried it with our Beef Supreme ingredients. So it's our iconic seasoned beef, sour cream, lettuce, cheddar, and tomatoes. But at first, I was like, yeah, I don't know if that's gonna work. But of course, you try everything. So we did that and I was like, holy shit, this is it, like it just … Everybody wanted it and everyone kept coming back for more. And at that point, it was like, wow, we have something here.

Shawn Busse: We wanted to make sure that we were evaluating it appropriately as the Taco Bell consumer would be evaluating it. 

Brett Pluskalowski: Right. 

Shawn Busse: And so we had Brett and his team ship us a whole bunch of seasoned ground beef and their sour cream and lettuce and tomato. And we had a large table in the center of our lab room with several people around the table trying this for the first time. And just like Brett said, I could read it on people's faces when they tried it, their eyes, like, sort of widened and they were like, "This is amazing." And there's something about the seasoned ground beef and the rest of the build with that Cheez-It crispness and flavor delivery that just worked so well. I mean, we could just tell that it was a hit.

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Dan Pashman: After some more refining, this “build” would become a new menu item called the Big Cheez-It Tostada. But Brett wasn’t done. All along he and his team kept playing around, trying all different uses for these giant Cheez-Its.

Dan Pashman: And that’s how they ended up with a second menu item: the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme. The Crunchwrap is one of Taco Bell's most iconic dishes. In case you’re not familiar, it's kind of like a flattened burrito in the shape of a hexagon. So, a soft flour tortilla filled with beef, nacho cheese sauce, lettuce, and tomato ... but the thing that makes it special is there's a crispy flat tostada shell inside, so after you bite through the doughy tortilla and the meat and cheese and fillings, you get to the center, and there’s a crunch. So the R&D teams thought: What if we replace that tostada shell with the giant Cheez-It?

Brett Pluskalowski: I remember the first time we put that in there, you know it's a big idea when people — when their eyes light up and it's like, wow, this is freaking perfect. Like I want it again. I want it more and more.

Dan Pashman: And Brett, from a culinary perspective, what is it about a Cheez-It that works well on a culinary level with the flavors at Taco Bell?

Brett Pluskalowski: I think the Cheez-it is like wine. There should be, like, a lingering flavor of cheese. 

Shawn Busse: [LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: I love a Cheez-It. I don't know that anyone's ever compared it to a fine wine.

[LAUGHING] 

Brett Pluskalowski: I mean ... 

Shawn Busse: I'm with you Brett. I'm with you. 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Even regular Cheez-Its, not the extra toasty ones, are a little extra toasty. Like there's a little bit of a sort of burnt cheese flavor that I really liked that I think is kind of like ... It's a little stronger. It's a little different from just like a baseline cheese. And part of what stays on your palate is that kind of, like, extra toasty sort of ... Almost like a browned cheese kind of flavor.

Brett Pluskalowski: Aged. Aged.

Shawn Busse: Yeah, you're absolutely right and I'll geek out a little bit on the flavor profile of Cheez-Its.

Dan Pashman: Oh please, geek out all you want.

Shawn Busse: But, I mean, one of the classic, like, flavor notes that in Cheez-It that we look for and require in the product is it's — we call it the sour dairy note. So if you go back and you try a Cheez-It again and look for the sourness that comes with it, and that's really — you think about cheese, it's got the lactic acid component to it. But you're right, then the baking process, the toasting of the Cheez-It sort of brings that out even more, and so that's what lingers in your mouth is that sour, dairy, toasted cracker note — that's the classic Cheez-It flavor.

Brett Pluskalowski: And salt.

Dan Pashman: A little bit of like a ... It's a little bit of a tang.

Shawn Busse: And the salt. And the salt hit. Yep, you're right, Brett.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. But that's interesting that you, that — right, that makes — so, to you, it's a sour dairy note ...

Shawn Busse: Is it. That's what it is.

Dan Pashman: And Brett, I can understand why —so like, it's almost like sour cream vibes.

Brett Pluskalowski: Correct.

Dan Pashman: It's interacting with the seasoned beef in the same way that sour cream might or similar way.

Brett Pluskalowski: Yes, correct. 

Shawn Busse: It just all sort of blends together very well. It's very balanced ... like a fine wine.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

[LAUGHING] 

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Dan Pashman: The Big Cheez-It Tostada and Crunchwrap were both hits within Taco Bell and Cheez-It corporate offices. But they’d need to pass several more tests before you and I could eat them. Next, Brett's team at Taco Bell led focus groups with different types of consumers. Some who visit Taco Bell once a week, some who go once a month, or even once a year.

Dan Pashman: The new menu items got tons of rave reviews in these focus groups. Next, they had to bring the products to an actual Taco Bell, to see what the staff there thought. Because Brett's got to be sure there aren’t unanticipated issues with the build when it’s done in real-world conditions by Taco Bell staffers. The Cheez-It products passed this test, too. The last step before making the products widely available?

Brett Pluskalowski: We put this into what we call a "learning lab". It's one store in California. It went into this one store, right? Just for two weeks, it sold out in four days, we had people driving from other states to, literally, come to that one restaurant. We had the police helping us with the drive-through [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] because traffic, like …

Dan Pashman: Oh, that's a good sign, I guess.

Brett Pluskalowski: It just ... It went gangbusters.

Dan Pashman: On June 6, the Big Cheez-It Tostada and Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme launched in Taco Bells nationwide. I asked Brett what it was like when they actually hit stores. 

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah, it's the most amazing feeling in the world. It really is. It's like you're — you worked so hard on these things. They take a long time. And when you finally see it in the restaurant and you can look at like, you know, people review food in their cars, on, like, YouTube, when you see people enjoy your food it's like, there's nothing better.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: But now, these new products would have to face the ultimate test, when Taco Bell customers started trying them all over the place. And with those first taste tests, social media reviews started pouring in. The Tostada got a lot of good reactions:

CLIP (PERSON 1): The Cheez-It is so salty, but in a good way.

CLIP (PERSON 2): Oddly, this kinda does the job. I’m actually quite happy with this.

CLIP (PERSON 3 ): They're actually pretty good. [CRUNCH]

CLIP (PERSON 4): I actually didn’t expect to like this so much.

Dan Pashman: But there were some critiques …

CLIP (PERSON 5): My first reaction is it’s smaller than I thought, it doesn’t really fill out the box. 

CLIP (PERSON 6): Now if I’m picking my tostada up, it has already fallen into pieces.

CLIP (PERSON 7): My giant bite, literally, disintegrated that cracker. [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: The Crunchwrap, on the other hand, seemed like a bit of a disappointment:

CLIP (PERSON 8): [CRUNCH] Let’s see if it works in the Crunchwrap. You can’t even see the Cheez-It in here.

CLIP (PERSON 9): Kind of underwhelming. The Cheez-It is so soggy, like it’s not crunchy at all. Like, so soggy.

CLIP (PERSON 8): [CRUNCH] Let's try it again. The flavor seems to get lost with the tortilla. I think it works better as the tostada.

Dan Pashman: Before I chatted with Brett and Shawn, I went to Taco Bell to try the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme. As I told them, I mostly agreed with those online reviews …

Dan Pashman: I did try the original, and I thought it was great, and I was very excited about it. But I'll be honest, it's good, but I wish there was even more Cheez-It in here. I wish that that was more the star. 

Brett Pluskalowski: Right. 

Dan Pashman: And certain things were detracting from the Cheez-It. Now to me, one of the things I think about a lot is in any layered food, whatever's on the bottom lands on your tongue and that flavor tends to get accentuated. I think that's why the tostada was such a quick winner, ‘cause the bottom layer is the Cheez-It, so that's going to land on your tongue. You're going to know you're eating a Cheez-It. The Crunchwrap's a bit more of a challenge because it's on the inside and there's a lot of flavors and it's not right on your tongue.

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: To me, all this just goes to show you how hard it is to create a hugely successful new food. Taco Bell and Cheez-It went through a years-long process and they got rave reviews at every step of the way. But when the products went to mass market, it didn’t go quite as well as they’d expected. Despite the elaborate and detailed tests, and an approach that seems very scientific, they can’t anticipate every issue, like a soggy Cheez-It. 

Dan Pashman: The Cheez-It items were always planned as “limited time only” offerings. So when their sale period ended in July, they both came off the menu. But based on all the feedback, the companies decided to retool the Crunchwrap and try for a second sale period. Brett and Shawn went right back into R&D mode. Brett says he took the feedback as a challenge to make something better — and he thinks that ability to listen and make changes based on what their fans want is a big part of what makes Taco Bell successful.

Brett Pluskalowski: So what we're doing now is our consumers are really asking for more crunch. So we're actually putting, you know, two crackers inside the Crunchwrap to amplify it even more.

Dan Pashman: So two giant Cheez-Its inside the Crunchwrap instead of one. I liked that idea, although it still didn’t bring the Cheez-It any closer to your tongue, which was the concern I had raised. I pitched Brett and Shawn my own idea …

Dan Pashman: Did you ever consider sandwiching the Crunchwrap between two giant Cheez-Its? And possibly fusing the Cheez-Its to the Crunchwrap with cheese or beans or something? What if you were to take the fully assembled Crunchwrap and basically make a sandwich ... 

Brett Pluskalowski: A sandwich? I don't know ... 

Dan Pashman: Using the two giant Cheez-Its as the sandwich bread and the Crunchwrap as the filling?

Brett Pluskalowski: Yeah, we never ... We never actually thought of that, but why not? We're going to be selling the à la carte cracker. So we were actually ... 

Dan Pashman: Ohhh. 

Brett Pluskalowski: You can get the cracker on its own. So you can totally do that yourself. It could be a hack, honestly. Like, I think you should do that. That's the beauty of it. Like, you know, you can take that build and you can go in, all in on it. But is that going to ... Is it going to hurt the consumer experience or are they going to amplify it and is it even better, like to have something where the consumer can do it themselves and they can, you know, customize it.

Shawn Busse: Exactly, right? I, personally, when, you know, after we did some of our internal reviews of the tostada or the Crunchwrap, and we had extra Cheez-Its laying around and all of your build materials. I was taking the sour cream and sort of spreading it on the cheese that's like peanut butter on two of them, you know?

Brett Pluskalowski: [LAUGHS] 

Shawn Busse: Putting some seasoned ground beef in between and making a big Cheez-It Taco Bell sandwich.

Dan Pashman: There you go.

Shawn Busse: And it was fantastic, so it works. 

Dan Pashman: I'm telling you, I'm going to test this. I'm going to test this, Brett.

Brett Pluskalowski: You should. You should test it.

Dan Pashman: It might need something to help it adhere, so it doesn't fall apart. It might need a little cheese sauce or beans or something to get it to stick to the giant Cheez-It [Brett Pluskalowski: To stick] to stick to the crunch wrap a little bit. But I think that if you can nail that, you're going to — it's going to maximize Cheez-It flavor.

Brett Pluskalowski: So when you go and you get the product again in the restaurants, try it, I want you to take a picture. I want you to send it to me. And then I want you to come out to California and then we can build things together on our line.

Dan Pashman: Oh my God. I'm there. Let's do it.

Brett Pluskalowski: Let's do it.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: I say goodbye to Brett and Shawn. My conversation with them was taped in August, after the original Cheez-It items had been pulled from menus and before the revamped Crunchwrap came out. But the folks at Taco Bell made arrangements for my local store to offer me a special sneak peek of the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme with double Cheez-Its. 

Dan Pashman: We got the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme in there ... 

Dan Pashman: I want to try the new Crunchwrap, but I also want to try out my Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Sandwich. Although, if it’s gonna take off I think I need a snappier name. Ultimate Cheez-It Crunchwich? We’ll work on that.

Dan Pashman: As I think through how to assemble it, I consult with general manager Carla Flores. Carla's worked at Taco Bell for 24 years. She says it was her first job, so I want her expert advice.

Dan Pashman: I'm gonna experiment on my own here and I need things that are going to help me fuse this Cheez-It cracker to the Crunchwrap. So if you were going to add a sauce?

Carla Flores: Which sauce would I add? I would say spicy ranch.

Dan Pashman: Spicy ranch. You think that's the best? Okay. All right. Let's try it. Let's try it, Carla. Do you sell beans on the side? Is there a side of beans?

Carla Flores: Oh yeah, we do have a side of beans.

Dan Pashman: Maybe some, because that might ...

Carla Flores: Black beans and we have refried beans.

Dan Pashman: Refried beans, 'cause that might also help me fuse my sandwich together.

Carla Flores: Sure. 

Dan Pashman: While I wait for my food, I ask Carla for her thoughts on the Cheez-It collab.

Carla Flores: I think it's a big idea because most of the people like cheese. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. [LAUGHS]

Carla Flores: You know, teenagers like cheese and combined with the meat, the sour cream, the lettuce, and tomato, it's good to have for lunch or any time that you want to eat.

Dan Pashman: My order comes out, and I sit down at a table ...

Dan Pashman: All right, I'm gonna try the new Crunchwrap with Double Cheez-It on the inside. [TAKING FIRST BITE] Mmm. Big improvement. Now you really know the Cheez-It's there. The Cheez-Its is much more the star now. Now I'm gonna try my idea. I ordered two more giant Cheez-Its. I'm gonna place the Crunchwrap in between the two Cheez-Its and fuse them together with refried beans and spicy ranch, which was the idea that Carla and I came up with. 

Dan Pashman: So in case you’re keeping score, I’m sandwiching the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap inside two more Big Cheez-Its. So 4 giant Cheez-its total.

[EATING BIG CHEEZ-IT CRUNCHWRAP INSIDE TWO MORE BIG CHEEZ-ITS]

Dan Pashman: This is a home run. And now I'm several bites into my Cheez-It Crunchwrap Sandwich concoction, and it is still completely holding together. The structural integrity is impressive. I think Brett and Shawn should see this. I think they would be impressed. The refried beans and spicy ranch are holding it all together beautifully. Even as the Cheez-It cracks, it still stays fused to the outside of the Crunchwrap. How many more foods do I have to invent before these people are gonna give me a job?

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: And with that, I got big news for you, the Big Cheez-It Tostada and Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme, with two times the Cheez-It, are available in Taco Bell stores nationwide right now. They just came back on the menu a few days ago. But only for a limited time! So get yours today, and order two more giant Cheez-Its so you can try my Ultimate Cheez-It Crunchwich hack.

Dan Pashman: My thanks to Brett Pluskalowski from Taco Bell and Shawn Busse from Kellanova for telling their story, and for giving us the Big Cheez-It. They spent five years and enlisted more than 500 people to develop these products.

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, I’m talking with two Jewish American cookbook authors about the tension between traditional and modern Jewish foods. One of those authors is Joan Nathan, who’s been documenting Jewish food around the world for decades. The other is Jeremy Salamon who isn’t afraid to put new spins on the classics of Hungarian Jewish food.

Dan Pashman: While you’re waiting for that one, check out last week’s episode about Nearest Green, the formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey in the 1860s. We talk with one of his descendants, and with an entrepreneur named Fawn Weaver who’s trying to tell Nearest’s story. That’s up now.

Dan Pashman: And hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful.

CREDITS

Joel Kraus: We're in the pasture area next to our barn. Pasture has grass and clover in it and they're free to forage and dig in the dirt.

Dan Pashman: This is Joel Kraus. He and his wife Amy own an egg farm in Pennsylvania, one of the many family-run farms that supply eggs to Nellie's Free-Range. The Kraus' have seen a lot of hens in their eight years of egg farming. Each one has its own personality and opinions.

Joel Kraus: Normally, I wear solid colored, like I have on now, but I decided to wear a button-up plaid shirt one day and I don't think they appreciated it cause they were like ... They were flipping out because ...

Dan Pashman: Really? [LAUGHS]

Joel Kraus: That's the only thing I could figure out.

Dan Pashman: So hens don't like plaid — or at least they don't like when Joel changes up his wardrobe. But they don't just sit around commenting on farmer's fashions, when they're in open pasture, Amy says they love to play.

Amy Kraus: They'll dig and they'll make holes and then they'll find rocks and they will move very big size rocks around that are probably ...

Dan Pashman: The gesture that you're making with your hands, it's like the size of a softball.

Amy Kraus: Yeah, softball.

Joel Kraus: Softball.

Amy Kraus: Which, if you think of the size of a chicken, you wouldn't really think they could move something like that.

Dan Pashman: Amy and Joel's hens are able to play on open pasture because they're free-range, which is not the same thing as cage-free. Cage-free hens barely go outside. But the hens that produce Nellie's Free-Range Eggs live the way hens should and that's important to Amy and Joel.

Amy Kraus: Cause then they can be chickens. You know, they can chase after bugs and forage for food and dust bathe and yeah, just be natural chicken.

Dan Pashman: And when chickens live the way they should, they make eggs that taste the way they should with rich creamy golden yolks and sturdy shells. These hens can tell the difference when they're free-range — just like they can tell the difference between Joel's shirts and a lot more.

Dan Pashman: I read an amazing fact that hens can recognize up to 100 different faces?

Amy Kraus: Yes, they can recognize up to 100 different — like hen people are faces.

Dan Pashman: That means the hens also know Amy and Joel’s three kids, who help out on the farm.

Amy Kraus: The kids name the chickens.

Joel Kraus: Chickie.

Amy Kraus: Chickie!

Eleanor Krauz: Yes, one was Chickie. She came down to our yard and she made nests and a flower bed, so then we just called her ...

Amy and Eleanor Kraus: Chickie.

Dan Pashman: That's Eleanor, the 7-year-old. Amy and Joel also have a 10-year-old daughter, Marianne.

Dan Pashman: How do the chickens respond to her when she walks the barn?

Amy Kraus: Pretty good.

Joel Kraus: I think they have a pretty good relationship. I think she's a warm and sensitive person, so ...

Dan Pashman: She's won them over.

Joel Kraus: Yeah.

Amy Kraus: Yes.

Dan Pashman: Just no plaid.

Joel Kraus: Nope.

Amy Kraus: No.

Joel Kraus: No plaid.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: Nellie's Free-Range Eggs are certified humane free-range, which means their hens are responsibly raised on family farms where they're free to roam in open pastures. Taste the difference. Nellie's Free-Range is proudly part of the Pete & Gerry's family. They've raised the bar for egg-cellence by pioneering humane egg farming. Visit geteggs.com to receive $2 back on your next purchase of Nellie's Free-Range and look for the purple carton wherever you get your eggs! Nellie's Free-Range — life's better out here.