McDonald's Filet-O-Fish Sandwich Earned Its Spot On The Menu By Beating Out A Fruit-Centered Competitor

There are many fun facts about McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, but perhaps the most interesting is its fruit-centric origin story. It all started in 1962 with Lou Groen, a McDonald's franchisee operating in a Cincinnati suburb called Monfort Heights, where the population was predominantly Catholic. Unfortunately for Groen, that meant very few sales on Fridays, as that was the day most Catholics at the time abstained from eating meat. But they did eat fish, which inspired Groen to create the Filet-O-Fish and present it to McDonald's founder Ray Kroc. Except, it turned out that Kroc was already working on his own meatless sandwich called the Hula Burger, which featured a thick pineapple patty with two slices of American cheese on a bun.

Confident in his creation and turned off by the idea of his restaurants smelling like fish, Kroc challenged Groen to a Good Friday sandwich showdown. The terms were simple: Both sandwiches would be sold at a few select locations, and the one with the most sales would be added to the menu. By the end of the competition, Kroc had sold six Hula Burgers to Groen's 350 Filets-O-Fish, and the rest was history.

With its crispy patty and flaky pollock filling, the Filet-O-Fish has remained a popular item to this day, with McDonald's selling around 300 million per year. It's a number we doubt the Hula Burger could ever theoretically achieve, especially since many would consider it to be one of several discontinued McDonald's items that won't be missed. But if you slightly subvert the pineapple as a patty concept, Kroc may have been onto something, as evidenced by the fact that there are many pineapple-topped burgers in restaurants across the world.

While it's probably ill-advised to use pineapple as a meat substitute, the tropical fruit can provide a bright pop of acidic sweetness that cuts through the rich fattiness of a beef burger. It's something that places like Islands, Jollibee, and Red Robin have all caught onto with their Hawaiian-inspired burgers, usually accompanied by some sort of teriyaki sauce or glaze. The same can also be said for well-known gourmet burger joints like Kuma's Corner in Chicago and Gordon Ramsay Burger, which previously served a limited-edition menu item featuring a pineapple mango relish. But the funniest thing? It turns out that McDonald's Australia previously put out its own pineapple offerings, including a Pineapple McSpicy chicken sandwich that proved so popular, it made its way for a limited time to locations in Ireland and the U.K.