Steak ‘n Shake Goes MAHA
The fast food company hopes to carve out a niche among seed oil skeptics.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr couldn’t have been happier.
“Eat Mor Bef Talow” read a March 1 tweet that is currently pinned to the top of Steak ‘n Shake’s 𝕏 account. “How about free fries with every Tesla purchase!?!” read another. The Indianapolis fast food eatery was making no mistake about their new approach in the second Trump administration—they were all in on Kennedy’s call for french fries to be fried in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil, effective immediately.
Speaking with Fox and Friends last week, Steak ‘n Shake’s Chief Operations Officer Daniel Edwards said the move to beef tallow fries is something the company has long considered. “We’ve actually been thinking about this for a while,” Edwards told the outlet. “Our owner, my boss, is a man named Sardar Biglari. He called me one time and said you know, ‘Why should Europeans have better fries than Americans?’”
Edwards recalled a meeting where Biglari noted his preference for french fries he had eaten as a child in Belgium, which set off a chain reaction that sent the company searching for a supplier who could meet production needs: “We found a supplier that could finally do that for us, and he said ‘We got to do it, we got to do it everywhere.’ And so, we did. We RFK’d our fries.”
Kennedy has long advocated for fast food companies to cook their fries in beef tallow, noting rising obesity rates in the United States. And although the American Heart Association states there is “no reason” to avoid fries cooked in vegetable oil, Kennedy cites beef tallow as a healthier, more nutritious option compared to widely used seed oils like soybean and canola oil.
In an October post to his Instagram page, Kennedy called seed oils “the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in foods.”
“The reason they’re in the foods is because they’re heavily subsidized, they’re very, very cheap,” Kennedy said during an appearance on Fox News. “But they’re associated with all kinds of very serious illnesses including body-wide inflammation which affects all of our health. It’s one of the worst things you can eat and it’s almost impossible to avoid, if you eat any kind of processed food, you’re going to be eating seed oils.”
The adoption of a MAGA pet project has been met with an outpouring of support from conservatives, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who called for “every fast food chain in America” to follow Steak ‘n Shake’s lead. 𝕏 owner Elon Musk said the new fries “taste way better” and Steak ‘n Shake immediately suggested his car company Tesla build EV charging ports outside their restaurants.
“More fast-food chains should follow their lead,” Ohio State Rep. Nick Santucci wrote in response to the beef tallow news. “Americans deserve real ingredients and traditional cooking methods in the food they eat!”
The move to beef tallow appears a sharp gamble for the once-casual diner turned fast food company that has struggled to find its footing in an ever-increasingly crowded fast food environment. Bought by Biglari Holdings in 2008, Steak ‘n Shake has tried reducing the menu size as well as franchising many of its company-owned restaurants in an effort to gain market share. But it’s been the company’s adoption of beef tallow fries and MAGA sloganeering that has garnered the attention of influential voices on the right who could potentially send scores of new customers through its doors. “Too much winning!” read a March 2 tweet riffing on President Trump’s trademark phrase.
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