Move over chicken: Boston Market introduces ribs (but one half rack has over a THOUSAND calories)



Boston Market is expanding beyond its well-known rotisserie chicken offering for a new meat: ribs, but half a rack of their new dish contains 1100 calories.



The Colorado-based chain hopes the ribs, its biggest new food launch in six years, will help bring new customers into its restaurants.

But nutritional information listed on the company's website reveals a half rack of St. Louis Style BBQ ribs also contains 74g of total fat, 2,670mg of sodium and 40g of sugars.



New menu: Boston Market is expanding beyond its well-known rotisserie chicken and now offering ribs... with a high fat and calorie content

Customers tempted by the new dish, will be consuming almost twice as many calories than they would from the chain's half rotisserie chicken, which contains 640 calories and 33g of total fat.

The restaurant does offer meals containing less than 550 calories too, which include a quarter rotisserie chicken and the roasted turkey breast.

Despite high levels of fat and sugar contained in the ribs, the company's CEO, George Michel, said: "It's a new product that will appeal to a wide audience.

"Ribs are not a product most people feel comfortable cooking at home."

Boston Market BBQ Ribs: The nutritional facts and fats

St. Louis Style BBQ Ribs 1/2 Rack Serving size: 413g Calories: 1100 Fat calories: 660 Total fat: 74g Saturated fat: 29g Cholesterol: 215mg Sodium: 2670mg Total carbs: 46g Fibre: 2g Sugars: 40g Protein: 65g



Boston Market, which has 471 locations nationwide, offers food such as rotisserie chicken, turkey, brisket and vegetable sides for people to either eat in its restaurants or take out for meals at home.



It also provides a catering service. It faces competitors such as Panera Bread and Chipotle Mexican Grill for the lunch crowd and casual dining chains like the Olive Garden and P.F. Chang's Chinese Bistro and grocery stores for the evening and weekend customer.

Michel said the new offering, the biggest launch since it started selling sandwiches six years ago, will help it compete against rivals.



Michel said Boston Market is the only national chain serving St. Louis-style ribs, making it stand out from competitors.



"St. Louis style" ribs are pork spare ribs, which are juicier and meatier than the baby back ribs casual dining chains usually serve. Boston Market will prepare the ribs by smoking them, baking them and then covering them with its own brand of barbecue sauce.



Michel said the company tested other ideas with 100,000 customers, via email surveys and taste tests, including sandwich wraps and beef, but ribs scored much higher than everything else.



It was tested in eight restaurants in Buffalo, N.Y., and Virginia.



They were aiming for rib sales to make up 6 percent of total sales, but ribs ended up accounting for 8 percent, Michel said.



Another test in Baltimore, this time with advertising, was a similar success, with rib sales making up 12 percent of total sales.

