BK (SG): Perfect fries at the Fries Bagging Station
Last updated: 14 Jan 2021
This article is part of a series that begins here.
Disclaimer: This entire article is my personal opinion, and is in no way affiliated with Burger King. I am not part of the management at Burger King (SG).
You probably already know a key reason why your fries are limp and cold when you receive them. If you thought limp and cold fries come from expired fries that sat at the Fries Bagging Station for too long, you’d be right! However, the actual operational procedures to serve fresh fries is a whole lot more involved!
As a valued customer at Burger King restaurants, your feedback and contribution are valuable to us. This article will actually equip you to spot errors in our handling of your fries, allowing you to even actively guide our staff to do your fries correctly! Our best managers (eg. Abraham at Waterway Point, Punggol, Singapore) are constantly overruled (behind their backs) by badly behaving staff and even by assistant managers too! Your help is much appreciated.
As a manager at Burger King restaurants, you will find this article conveniently prescriptive (that tells you exactly what to do) in contrast to the principle-based Operations Manual (that gives you instructions only in broad strokes).
First In First Out, Be Fair to All Customers
We bag french fries, onion rings and hash browns (breakfast hours only) at the Fries Bagging Station.
When your order for fries comes in, you’ll get french fries that are fresh. If you then order fries again 10 minutes later, you’ll get french fries that are fresher by 10 minutes. Makes sense? The customer that orders later should still get fresh fries.
So when do you get fries that are not fresh? When we serve you fries meant for earlier orders, when our FIFO procedure is blatantly refused/ignored by staff.
To illustrate better, we consider an exaggerated scenario. Orders that come in during late afternoon should get fries prepared at late afternoon, and not fries prepared long ago at early afternoon. In reality, you get expired fries in a timeframe that is surprisingly fast by all common expectations.
Holding Time: The lifespan of fresh fries
To better understand how you can actually get expired fries, we must consider the holding time of fresh fries. Holding time is the time we are allowed to hold a cooked product in its designated place before it is considered expired and not fit to be served to customers.
The holding time of fresh fries is 7 minutes, and for onion rings and hash browns 10 minutes.
Your fries become expired within 7 minutes, not 30 minutes. We’re not maliciously hoarding older fries to serve to you. The timeframe for fresh fries is surprisingly tight.
Given that the timeframe for fresh fries is so tight, how is it humanly possible to ensure we serve you fresh fries? Just standing around for a short chat with a friend will see fresh fries die!
To serve you fresh fries always, we have a strict (but really rarely followed) procedure at the Fries Bagging Station. (Yes, it’s really rarely followed. I can tell you I’ve tasted truly fresh fries at Burger King that I cooked myself, and it’s as good as McDonald’s! So there really isn’t any secret sauce to great french fries, only devoted and caring food preparation!)
FIFO: From Cooked to Holding to Portioned
The Fries Bagging Station is divided into 2 segments: one for french fries (on the left at Waterway Point, Punggol, Singapore) and one for onion rings. Breakfast hours see only 1 segment: for hash browns. The station has a fry ribbon rack, which is where we keep portioned fries (or onion rings, hash browns) ready to serve to you.
Cooking: Next, Current, Portioned
In general, each segment (fries or onion rings or hash browns) has 2 sections: Next Section and Current Section. The Next Section is closer to the Frying Station (on the right at Waterway Point, Punggol, Singapore), whereas the Current Section is closer to the Portioned Section where the fry ribbon rack sits. So there are really 3 sections at each segment: Portioned Section, Current Section, Next Section. (The Portioned Section is shared among all segments.)
FIFO cooking is simple at the Fries Bagging Station. Whenever the next batch of fries is being cooked, shuffle the existing batch to the side closer to the Portioned Section, creating 2 sections: Current Section (which has fries) and Next Section (which is now empty). When the next batch is cooked, deposit it into the now empty Next Section.
Cooking with FIFO for fresh fries. Cooked fries move from Next Section to Current Section to Portioned Section.
Salting of fries happen only in the Next Section. In this way, we also avoid re-salting already-salted fries in the Current Section.
Your fries from Burger King are usually unsalted or occasionally doubly salted. Why? Because we don’t separate the current (salted) batch of fries from the next (unsalted) batch. This isn’t a very show-stopping lapse in operational procedure, but you might wanna ask for salt packets to go with your fries, just in case.
Our staff usually avoids salting because nobody ever separates the unsalted batch of fries from the salted batch. Err on the safe side!
Serving: Portioned, Current, Next
FIFO serving is simple at the Fries Bagging Station. Serve fries from the Portioned Section, portion fries to order from the Current Section, and shuffle from Next Section to Current Section when Current Section is used up.
Serving with FIFO for fresh fries. Fries are served from Portioned Section, then Cooked Section, then Next Section.
Strict procedures to enforce
So if you see us portioning fries from the Next Section, you know that someone is gonna get expired fries! Instruct our staff to always:
- Portion fries from the Current Section
- Portion fries only to order, not before orders come in.
- Hold fries only in the Current Section, not the Portioned Section nor the Next Section.
- Keep the Next Section empty until orders stream in and we’re certain that the Current Section will be used up soon. Then we cook the next batch of fries.
- Avoid depositing the next batch of fries over the current batch. Our staff always (yes, always, I only observed the store manager perform properly) mix the next batch with the current batch! That means every customer gets a mixture of expired fries and fresh fries. Unless that’s your preference, instruct our staff to adhere to FIFO properly!
The onion rings segment at the Fries Bagging Station is very small. Consider the top half (away from staff) as the Next Section and the bottom half (closer to staff) as the Current Section.
Our fries are held for longer than the officially allowed holding time of 7 minutes. Way longer, and we never throw out expired fries unless customers complain about limp fries. My advice is simply “caveat emptor”.
Perfectly Cooking French Fries
At the Frying Station, we have 4 frying vats: 2 are fries frying vats and 2 are multi-purpose frying vats.
The temperature is different for the 2 types of frying vats. Fries frying vats are heated to 350°F (177°C), and multi-purpose frying vats to 360°F (182°C).
If you think the 10°F (5°C) difference is inconsequential, you’d be mistaken! Frying fries in the multi-purpose frying vats will give you overcooked fries, and frying anything other than fries in the fries frying vats will give you undercooked onion rings and such.
Small temperature difference, big taste consequence
If you’re inclined to help us ensure we cook your fried foods properly, keep an eye on our Frying Station! One particular staff who works only 8pm to 11pm nightly (the Nightly-Closer) often undercooks fried foods or overcooks french fries. Why? Because he starts cleaning up for closing hour (10pm) from 8pm (2 hours before closing) in a bid to end work early; restaurant establishments have to spend some hours doing necessary end-of-day cleaning before shutting down properly for the day.
The Nightly-Closer shuts down 1 fries frying vat and 1 multi-purpose frying vat by 9pm, so expect your orders for fried foods (fried burger patties, mexican drumlets, taro turnovers, etc) to be either under or over cooked at this time, and/or expect much longer waiting times because of undercapacity at the Frying Station. A flurry of incoming orders often forces the Nightly-Closer (as well as other staff unwilling to stop him from performing an overly-early end-of-day clean-up) to cook fried foods at the wrong frying vats.
French fries are cooked in the 2 fries frying vats at the Frying Station. Every other fried food product is cooked in the 2 multi-purpose frying vats there. Eager early clean-up 2 hours before closing time might see a breakdown of frying procedures, so watch out!
Even Cooking, Anti-Clumping
Fries are cooked for a total of about 3 minutes, of which 2.5 minutes is actual cook time and 0.5 minutes is shake time for shaking the fries to ensure even cooking.
All frying vats are programmed to include the 30-second shake time, during which a staff must pull the fry basket out of the shortening (frying oil) and shake the basket back and forth for 30 seconds.
Even in non-peak periods, staff don’t bother shaking the fry basket correctly. They either shake the basket in the shortening (it’s heavy enough to require both hands), or not shake the basket at all. Things get even worse during peak periods, when clumped and unevenly cooked fries is the de facto bad quality every customer gets.
So this is why Burger King fries are almost always too tough on the outside and not fluffy on the inside, the 30 second shake time is rarely observed, causing fries to be overcooked by 30 seconds. I was only taught to shake the fries for a mere 5 seconds, so even an eager fresh-faced staff like me overcooked your fries for 25 seconds!
I actually found some time to cook to specification a very small batch of fries during non-peak periods. When observing the 30-second shake time protocol, the fries turned out just as good as McDonald’s!
Note to Burger King (SG) Management: Can Burger King’s test kitchens please research this properly and give all operations staff a definitive protocol on this?
Guess I’ll be eating McDonald’s fries still. I don’t like any of their other offerings, but their fries are still right and proper.
Batch size
To ensure even cooking, frying batch size is just as important as shake time.
The maximum batch size is 680g of frozen fries. Although the Operations Manual clearly states this batch size, our restaurant doesn’t use any weighing machines to ensure we don’t overload the fry basket.
There is also no indicator line to mark the maximum load that is 680g of frozen fries, so the Operations Manual is clearly unaware that equipment in shops don’t meet its specifications.
Habitual peak hour rush, which severely dampens quality, also means staff take a blatantly irresponsible shortcut: utterly overloading the fry basket.
Several negative consequences stem from overloading fry baskets. Fries are undercooked as they clump together; no amount of shaking can solve this. The shortening is heavily damaged as excess fries spill out of fry baskets; we don’t have time to skim these spills out during peak hours.
So, not only are the fries undercooked and unevenly cooked, future batches of fries will also degrade in quality due to damage to the shortening.
Cooking time: official and in practice
While the Operations Manual may seem very wrong in terms of cook time, I believe that this lapse is executive only, not operational. The cook time set at the restaurants should be correct, so follow that. The Operations Manual could very well be wrong and outdated.
Cooking time specified in the Operations Manual seem very wrong and/or outdated. French fries are cooked for 2 minutes and 40 seconds in the shops, but Operations Manual call for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Onion rings also have discrepant information, 1 minute 40 seconds vs 1 minute 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds’ discrepancy for fries and 30 seconds for onion rings!
Never hold (store) over hot shortening!
Never store fries over hot shortening. That includes never keeping the fry basket with cooked fries hanging over the frying vat.
Storing cooked fries over hot shortening causes fries to go limp. Cold(er) oil that evaporated from the shortening makes fries damp and greasy.
Properly drain cooked fries
Fries also go limp in the Fries Bagging Station because staff dumped too much shortening into the station. The official rule is to drain the fry basket of fries for 5 seconds. The unofficial practice is to drain for 1 second, if at all.
If you see shortening being dumped into the Fries Bagging Station, expect the 7-minute holding time for fries to be drastically shortened, perhaps to 5 minutes or even less.
At Burger King restaurants, we often only manage to hire staff with “challenged” fitness levels. The tasks of draining fry baskets of shortening, shuffling fries with FIFO, and more, are physically demanding for these staff.
But the least a restaurant manager can do is to prevent this homogenous cohort of underperforming staff from overruling management. Assign shift leaders appropriately, and watch out for staff defeating official operations design and damaging staff motivation.
Transparency at Burger King
It’s not that Burger King tries to hide the holding time of fresh fries (and other sides) from the customers. Advertising real estate (media space) is limited and expensive, so it doesn’t make sense for Burger King to even put in a single line of “french fries served fresh within 7 minutes of cooking” on any webpage or menu board.
If you want to know the lifespan of fresh fries, just ask any manager at any restaurant. Or you can work at a Burger King restaurant like I do!
Burger King is committed to serving perfect quality food. Comprehensive cooking instructions and holding instructions ensure we serve you food that is perfectly and freshly cooked.
Compliance may be compromised
While Burger King is committed to serving you the highest quality food and dining experience, staff compliance very often falls way short of our commitment. And I say “commitment” rather than “aspiration” because our operations process designs, particularly in food preparation/handling, are very complete and well researched.
Shortfall in compliance creates a gaping divide between perfectly designed food preparation/handling processes and actual service delivery. The fast food restaurant that manages to achieve full compliance is leaps and bounds ahead of the others.
