I liked their chili until I found out they use old hamburger patties for the meat.
I haven’t worked for Wendy’s since 1982 but the “old” hamburger patties they use for chili are patties that sat on the grill one minute too long, so instead of throwing it out they chop it up and make chili out of it (same day, and sell it within a day or two). Pretty good, actually.
It’s not like they age it for a week or two in the fridge.
In regular home cooking, old/lesser food is often used in mish-mash type dishes. Burger is like that for chili and spaghetti. Efficient usage. Not as noticible in casserole type dishes that the ingredients are low quality, but straight-up food, definitely notice.
You just reminded me of my favorite job @ Wendy’s when I worked there as a kid in the late 70s, saving money so I could go to Germany.
It is true that the unsold burger patties not good enough to make a decent burger for a customer are kept @ the corner of the grill and towards the end of the day, the new trainee will be taught how to make a big batch of chili after said trainee lasted a week and proved himself at least useful enough in keeping up with correctly making enough fries during rush but not so many they can’t be sold later. (Excess fries are waste and must go out with the trash).
Ideally, the store should be out of chili but it will always be there.
The new grill guy will take that shift’s unsold fully cooked patties and chop them up to bite size, then stir them in to a fresh cauldron of sweet chili mix and beans and it’s virtually foolproof, as it should be, these are teenagers new to work.
I personally took a great deal of pride in making a good batch of chili, and there’s no way anything on the floor is ever going into it.
Our crew took pride in running a clean restaurant, the worst we ever got was flinging those flat pickle slices, they stick to flat surfaces and foreheads if they land just right:)