“I stopped going because of the nasty tasting fries. Please bring back the original fries, they were so good.”
That comment, posted on a Chick-fil-A Instagram post, was one of hundreds that accumulated after the chain quietly changed its waffle fry recipe in late 2024. The backlash was loud enough, and specific enough, that Chick-fil-A eventually reversed course entirely. But not before a lot of loyal customers had already made up their minds about the new version.
Chick-fil-A’s waffle fries have been on the menu since 1985 and are, by most accounts, one of the most beloved items in fast food. The chain introduced a modification in late 2024 that added pea starch to the coating, with the stated goal of keeping the fries crispier for longer. The idea made sense on paper. The execution, according to customers, did not deliver.
What customers tasted
The complaints were consistent and specific. “Love that they’re crispier, but they are pretty bland now,” one Reddit user wrote. Others were less charitable: “They’re terrible. They do not hold up well as they get cold.” On Instagram, customers described the new fries as greasy, flavorless, and fundamentally different from what they had eaten for years. “Change the fries back and stop messing with your food,” one customer wrote. “It’s ruining your brand.”
Beyond taste, the pea starch change raised an unexpected concern among customers with food allergies. Peas are legumes, and some people with peanut allergies may also react to pea protein. For a customer base that had come to trust Chick-fil-A’s ingredient transparency, the addition of an allergen-adjacent ingredient without prominent communication was a problem.
The reversal
By early 2026, Chick-fil-A reversed the change. The pea starch came out of the recipe, and the chain confirmed to Fox News Digital that its waffle fries had returned to the original formulation. The reaction online was immediate and enthusiastic. “THEY REMOVED THE PEA STARCH! HALLELUJAH!” one Facebook user wrote. Others noticed a difference right away: “I noticed they taste so much better again!”
The episode is instructive. Chick-fil-A listened, and it did the right thing by reversing course. But the months between the change and the reversal cost the chain something with customers who had come to take the fries for granted as a fixed, reliable part of the experience. When you change something people love, the goodwill you spend comes out of an account that took decades to fill.
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