Products
The only Burger King trademarks that are currently sold at Hungry Jack's are the Whopper range of beef burgers and the TenderCrisp range of chicken burgers. Other products sold by Hungry Jack's include the Brekky Wrap range and the Grill Masters premium Angus beef burger range, as well as more generic items such as cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, and chips.[26][27]
Hungry Jack's breakfast menu, introduced in late 2005 in two states, Queensland and Western Australia, as well as the Northern Territory, and the other states the following year, bears little resemblance to Burger King's US breakfast menu, and includes items such as English muffins and toasties.[26] In 2021 Hungry Jack's released two new breakfast menu items, the Turkish Brekky BLAT and the Turkish Brekky BLAT with egg. A BLAT sandwich is popular in Australia; the acronym stands for Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato.[28]
Due to the increase in popularity of plant-based meat alternatives being consumed across Australia,[29] Hungry Jack's introduced the "Rebel Whopper" in partnership with V2food in late 2019, which is a variation of the Whopper containing a meat-free patty made with protein extracted from legumes.[30][31][32] A large promotional campaign was run, including partnering with online creator Natalie Tran.[33] The restaurant also serves a vegan Whopper burger and English muffins, which contain a vegetable patty.[26]
In November 2018, the full menu of Hungry Jack's was available for home delivery via Menulog.[34]
In April 2022, Hungry Jack's launched its Jack's Café coffee chain brand as a pilot scheme in its 65 restaurant in Western Australia as a response to McDonald's McCafé offering.[35] The pilot scheme was perceived as being successful and the coffee brand was rolled out to all Hungry Jack restaurants in Australia in June of the same year.[36] Grinders Coffee, the coffee blend used by Hungry Jack's later received Gold Medal in the Large Chain Store Espresso Category of the 2023 Golden Bean Australasia awards.[37]
Big Jack
In mid-2020, the chain introduced the "Big Jack" burger, which is essentially a slightly altered version of the Big King, and similar to McDonald's Big Mac burger. The close similarities in the name, appearance and the marketing of the burger led to McDonald's suing Hungry Jack's in the Federal Court of Australia in August 2020 over trademark infringement, and they sought to cancel Hungry Jack's Big Jack trademark which had been filed the previous year.[38] They also accused the company of deliberately copying the ingredients and appearance of the Big Mac in bad faith.[39]
In its defence, Hungry Jack's argued that the burger's name is simply a play on the company's name and that of its founder Jack Cowin, and that a burger's appearance and composition cannot be protected by a trademark, noting that their product features "common characteristics of hamburgers" sold everywhere.[39] However the company also admitted there was an “element of cheekiness” in the name, and that it was positioned as a direct competitor to the Big Mac.
