The junior-sized Frosty to remain.
Quick serve restaurant Wendy’s is eliminating soda from the drink choices available on its kids’ meals, due to pressure from public health awareness groups, Fox News reported.
The beverage options listed for kids’ meals now are 1% white or chocolate milk, bottled water and 100% juice. Wendy’s spokesman told USA Today that soda was never a default drink choice for kid’s meals.
“When ordering a kids’ meal, the customer is asked what beverage they prefer,” Bertini wrote via email. “The change is the kids’ meal beverage options which are shown on our menu boards.”
Parents and kids can still buy soda, the option is just no longer listed on the kids menu. The junior-sized Frosty, the fast-food chains version of a milkshake will remain on the kids’ menu.
The Center for Science in Public Interest—an advocacy group pushing for healthier food—applauded Wendy’s decision in a statement. It also noted that the chain could further improve its menu by serving “whole grain rolls, offering more fruit and vegetable options, reducing sodium across the menu, and dropping Frosty’s from the children’s menu.”
In 2013, McDonald’s took soda off its Happy Meal menu, and Subway and Arby’s have also taken soda off their kids’ menus. Burger King has yet to follow suit, however, a company representative for Burger King told USA Today that the chain is “currently in the process of analyzing the removal of fountain drinks from our kids’ menu boards.”