NEW YORK – Back in 2012, Burger King followed in the footsteps of industry leader McDonald’s, expanding their menu with the addition of 10 new products in April of that year, followed by several new limited-time offers. However, that approach didn’t seem to work, as the chain saw falling sales in the subsequent year.

So, the company tried a new strategy, one that more and more QSRs are trying: fewer products that each have a bigger impact. Burger King’s new products would be easier to create, so they could be made more quickly with fewer new ingredients. The result, according to an article in Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN): Burger King’s sales rose in 2014, and in the first quarter of 2015, same-store sales rose nearly 7%.

As the publication writes, the shift at Burger King is not an unusual one. After years of adding products to menus in an effort to remain relevant, QSRs have started cutting menu items to increase speed and efficiency.

NRN writes that in 2005, the average QSR menu had 80 products, according to the Chicago research firm Datassential. By 2008, the average menu had 94 items. In the years since, that menu size decreased just about every year, down to 85.6 items on average in 2014.

The shift toward narrower menus is coming amid a demassification of the restaurant industry. Consumers are gravitating toward specialty concepts and away from chains with broader menus. And chains with broad menus aimed at large swaths of customers are ceding business to those specialty chains. Fast-casual restaurants and new quick-service chains are entering the market with narrower, more specialized menus.

And existing quick-service restaurants are responding by cutting menus or limiting menu additions to focus more on quality, speed and service. And while chains often rely on adding menu items to attract new customers, or to eliminate the so-called “veto vote” (in which one member of a party may nix a certain concept based on its menu),many experts believe that chains are still better off cutting from the menu and specializing in a few things. By being good at those few things, chains can attract enough customers looking for quality to offset what is lost from the veto votes.

Read more of the article,here.