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Wendys Foie Gras Burger

January 16, 2012 by · Comments Off on Wendys Foie Gras Burger 

Wendys Foie Gras Burger, Wendy’s Co., the third-biggest U.S. fast-food chain, added goose-liver pate and truffles to burgers as it invests as much as $200 million on a return to Japan two years after leaving the country.

The Japan Premium sandwich sells for 1,280 yen ($16) at Wendy’s in Tokyo’s Omotesando luxury shopping district, the first of a targeted 100 shops. “We think the fast-food market here is ready for something different,” Ernest Higa, chief executive officer of Wendy’s Japan LLC, said in an interview at the restaurant’s opening yesterday.

Wendy’s is re-entering Japan under a plan to expand outside the U.S., where it got 92 percent of revenue in 2010, after posting losses in six of the past eight quarters. The Dublin, Ohio-based chain is focusing on the world’s second-biggest fast- food market first as it looks for operating partners in China and Brazil.

“Japan is the most important of the three to me, because we are actually selling burgers here today,” Darrell Van Ligten, international division president, said in an interview in Omotesando. The company expects to eventually expand to about 700 restaurants in Japan, compared with about 3,300 for McDonald’s Corp.’s local unit, the nation’s biggest fast-food burger chain.

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