Chick-fil-A Customers Are All Riled Up Over the New Waffle Fry Recipe: 'The Are Horrible!'

When it comes to fast food establishments, there’s no getting around the need for good fries. At Chick-fil-A, fans of the popular chicken shack have always spoken highly of the brand's waffle fry selection, but those days are now numbered as fans are catching wind of a slight change to the recipe. And if we’ve learned anything about switching up an already good recipe, it’s that you will never hear the end of it from a dedicated swath of specifically opinionated fans.

"Chick-fil-A just changed their fries here at our local store in Reading, PA, and I'm completely dumbfounded as to why any sane minded decision maker would allow these new fries to be sold. They are horrible!,” one person shared to the r/ChickFilA subreddit. "The new fries are covered with some sort of starch now in effort to keep them from shrinking as much, they said. No more natural soft fried crispy yummy fries. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone complain about the shrinkage, so this change just blows my mind."

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The fries in question have been compared by other Chick-fil-A goers to battered fries that are typically found in food truck settings and tend to have a much crispier bite than what the average customer experiences with a Chick-fil-A waffle fry. But that doesn’t explain the supposedly less appealing taste. So what gives?

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In a notice posted to Chick-fil-A’s customer support section online, the brand confirms that the rumors of a recipe change are, in fact, true.

“We know Chick-fil-A fans love our Waffle Potato Fries. We recently made a slight adjustment to our Waffle Potato Fries recipe, which offers the same great taste while also making our Waffle Potato Fries stay crispier, longer,” the notice reads.

Related: The 77-Year-Old Chick-fil-A Recipe That's Practically Perfect

The notice goes on to explain that food safety and quality are still the brand's top priorities, stating that “while the new recipe doesn’t contain any of the nine major allergens, the new Waffle Potato Fries coating does contain pea starch.”

According to other comments in the r/ChickFilA subreddit, the change went into effect “nationwide on Wednesday” January 1, and “there might still be a few old bags that need to be used first,” although “they should all be the new fries eventually.”

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In response to the big question of “why change them,” another commenter chimed in to offer some valuable insight: “They’re crispier so that it retains heat longer.”

Related: Chick-fil-A Fans Are 'So Annoyed' That Certain Menu Items Aren't Available Nationally: 'This Is an Outrage'

“One of the biggest complaints about the fries is that they lose their temperature and they sink,” the commenter continued. “That’s why people always say they didn’t get their fries filled up all the way. But if the fries sat in the chutes or in the bags while waiting to be given to the customers, they’d sink,” or deflate.

While the change in crispiness is due to the addition of pea starch, fans of Chick-fil-A can’t help but be wary of additional ingredients that might raise concern for those with specific allergies. One Redditor took it upon themselves to identify the other added ingredients to the new recipe, which included modified food starch (corn, potato, tapioca), rice flour, xanthan gum, dextrin, sodium acid pyrophosphate and sodium bicarbonate.

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