BK Chicken Tenders - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

BK Chicken Tenders are a fried chicken

Fried chicken

Fried chicken is a dish consisting of chicken pieces usually from broiler chickens which have been floured or battered and then pan fried, deep fried, or pressure fried. The breading adds a crisp coating or crust to the exterior...

product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King

Burger King

Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...

. It is one of their snack oriented products designed for convenience of consumption.

Product description

BK Chicken Tenders are small, thin pieces of formed, white meat chicken, breaded and lightly spiced. Sizing is contingent on regional preferences of franchises, sizes include three, four, five, six, eight piece portions. When first introduced there was a larger, twenty-five piece "party pack" sold in a carry box, now discontinued.

Variants

A related product, Fish Tenders, was introduced to complement Chicken Tenders during a 1989 menu expansion. The product was an order of fish sticks sold in the same style container as the Chicken Tenders with a Tartar sauce package for dipping. Portion sizes corresponded to the Chicken Tenders. It was discontinued in 1990.

The Chicken Tender sandwich - 3 Chicken Tender pieces served on a hamburger roll with either mayonnaise
Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise, , often abbreviated as mayo, is a sauce. It is a stable emulsion of oil, egg yolk and either vinegar or lemon juice, with many options for embellishment with other herbs and spices. Lecithin in the egg yolk is the emulsifier. Mayonnaise varies in color but is often white, cream, or pale...

and lettuce or parmigiana style with mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce
Marinara Sauce
Marinara sauce is a southern Italian tomato sauce usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs , and onion. However, there are many variations. Some of these include the addition of capers, olives, anchovies, and/or spices....

. Sold as a part of the U.S. BK regional value menu. Sold permanently in Germany with BBQ sauce added.

In an attempt to address the rise in childhood obesity in Western nations, BK announced in September 2007 it will begin phasing in broiled Chicken Tenders as part of an expanded, health-oriented children's menu. According to a statement by BKC the new broiled product will be part of new Kid's Club menu that will contain no more than 560 calories per meal, less than 30 percent of calories from fat, less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat
Saturated fat
Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the individual carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain. That is, the chain of carbon atoms is fully "saturated" with hydrogen atoms...

, no added trans fats and no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars. Available in the UK and Ireland as of February 2008.

Aliases and international naming

In Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

, except Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, they are called King Nuggets.
In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

they are called chicken nuggets.

Dipping sauce options

Different dipping sauces are offered as condiments, the selection includes:

United States / Canada
- barbecue sauce
  Barbecue sauce
  Barbecue sauce is a flavoring sauce or condiment ranging from watery to very thick consistency. As the name implies, it was created as an accompaniment to barbecued foods. While it can be applied to any food, it usually tops meat after cooking or during barbecuing, grilling, or baking...
- honey mustard
- ranch
  Ranch dressing
  Ranch dressing is a condiment made of some combination of buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, mayonnaise, minced green onion, garlic powder, and other seasonings mixed into a sauce. Ranch dressing has been the best-selling salad dressing in the United States since 1992, when it overtook Italian dressing...
- buffalo sauce
- sweet & sour

UK/Ireland
- Tangy Tomato
- Sweet Chili
- Blazing BBQ

Spain
- Mayonnaise
- Barbecue
- Mexican Salsa
- Hot Chili Sauce
- Queso Dip
- Mondo Mango

Sweden
- Spicy Cheese
- Mexican
- Salsa
  Salsa (sauce)
  Salsa may refer to any type of sauce. In American English, it usually refers to the spicy, often tomato based, hot sauces typical of Mexican and Central American cuisine, particularly those used as dips. In British English, the word typically refers to salsa cruda, which is common in Mexican ,...
- Curry
  Curry
  Curry is a generic description used throughout Western culture to describe a variety of dishes from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Thai or other Southeast Asian cuisines...
- Bearnaise sauce
  Bearnaise sauce
  Béarnaise sauce is a sauce made of clarified butter emulsified in egg yolks and flavored with herbs. It is considered to be a 'child' of the mother Hollandaise sauce, one of the five sauces in the French haute cuisine mother sauce repertoire...
- Sour cream
  Sour cream
  Sour cream is a dairy product rich in fats obtained by fermenting a regular cream by certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturally, sours and thickens the cream. Its name stems from the production of lactic acid by bacterial...
  
  and onion
- Vitlök (garlic)

Promotional/discontinued sauces
- Green apple slime (Nickelodeon
  Nickelodeon (TV channel)
  Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
  
  tie-in)
- Horseradish
  Horseradish
  Horseradish is a perennial plant of the Brassicaceae family, which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, and cabbages. The plant is probably native to south eastern Europe and the Arab World , but is popular around the world today...
- Honey Sauce

History

Chicken Tenders officially made their debut in a menu revision/expansion in 1985 to address the absence of a chicken based finger product akin to McDonald's

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

Chicken McNuggets

Chicken McNuggets are a product offered by international fast-food restaurant chain McDonald's and are one of the most popular trademarked items on the McDonald's menu....

. Original portion sizes were six-, nine-, twelve and a twenty-five piece party pack. At the time the product had to be withdrawn over limited availability of chicken meat from producers, the product was re-introduced about six months later. Originally made with sliced fillets

Fillet (cut)

A fillet is a cut or slice of boneless meat or fish.- Meat :In the case of beef, in the USA, the term most often refers to beef tenderloin, especially filet mignon.- Chicken :...

of chicken, the product was reformulated into a formed, chopped-chicken product several years later. Beginning in 2006, BK started changing the original chicken tenders shape to crowns. Currently these new shaped products are sold in the U.S., Canada and other regional markets.

During certain promotional periods, BK has altered the shape of the Chicken Tenders to reflect that promotion. For instance during the Star Wars: Episode III
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....

tie-in

Tie-in

A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...

, the Tenders were shaped as stars and lightning bolts

Thunderbolt

A thunderbolt is a discharge of lightning accompanied by a loud thunderclap or its symbolic representation. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of meteors, or, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies,...

. During the release of Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...

in movie theaters the tenders were shaped as dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s.

In January 2008, BK reformulated these products to eliminate trans fat

Trans fat

Trans fat is the common name for unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acid. Because the term refers to the configuration of a double carbon-carbon bond, trans fats are sometimes monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, but never saturated....

in the manufacturing of the product. In 2011, the product was again reformulated, replacing the crown shaped product with a standard chicken nugget type product. A twenty piece serving size was reintroduced.

Naming and trademarks

The name Chicken Tenders is a registered trademark of Burger King Holdings and is displayed with the "circle-R" (®) symbol in the U.S.

United States trademark law

Trademarks were traditionally protected in the United States only under State common law, growing out of the tort of unfair competition. As early as 1791, Thomas Jefferson proposed that the marks of sailcloth makers could be protected under the Commerce Clause, but it was not until 1870 that...

, Canada

Canadian trade-mark law

Canadian trade-mark law provides protection to marks statutorily under the Canadian Trade-marks Act and also at common law. Trade-mark law provides protection for distinctive marks, certification marks, distinguishing guises, and proposed marks against those who appropriate the goodwill of the mark...

and the Middle East. Burger King currently only has European trademarks

European trade mark law

European trade mark law is governed by national law in the countries which make up Europe, together with European Law within those European countries which are also EU member states...