Wendy's Replacing Its Pumpkin Frosty With Iconic Holiday Flavor

By the time we get to Thanksgiving, pumpkin spice season will be long over—at least at Wendy's.

The chain began celebrating the start of fall as early as September when it launched a brand-new limited edition Pumpkin Spice Frosty. The seasonal treat featured hints of pumpkin and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg blended with Wendy's classic Frosty base. Now, as Christmas draws closer, the fast-food chain is set to replace the Pumpkin Spice Frosty with a minty holiday treat that made its first appearance on the Wendy's menu in 2022.

That's right! Wendy's limited-edition Peppermint Frosty is coming back for an encore this month. Come Nov. 14, the festive treat will take the Pumpkin Spice Frosty's place on the Wendy's menu alongside the classic Chocolate Frosty.

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The frozen dessert features peppermint flavors combined with Wendy's creamy Frosty base in a nod to the winter holidays. Once it finally returns in a couple of weeks, the Peppermint Frosty will be the third seasonal flavor that the chain has offered this year, alongside the Pumpkin Spice Frosty and Strawberry Frosty that returned this past spring following its 2022 debut.

John Li, global vice president of Culinary innovation at Wendy's, said that his team had to take great care in developing these new flavors since the classic Frosty is such a beloved staple among fans.

"We're so careful about things that have a lot of legacy and history to Dave Thomas, and the Frosty definitely does," he told Eat This, Not That!.

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Even though Wendy's teams feel the need to be careful when playing around with the classic Frosty taste, the 2022 launch of the Strawberry Frosty made it very clear that Wendy's customers have a major appetite for unique new flavors. Li said that demand for the strawberry flavor was so intense during that initial debut that they actually started to face supply issues, which inspired them to develop even more limited-edition flavors like peppermint and pumpkin spice.

"We all realized we've got to figure out how to do this seasonally," he said.

In good news for Frosty fans, Li said that the success of the seasonal Frosty launches paves the way for even more flavor innovations in the future. But no matter what's next for the Frosty, Li hopes that consumers will continue to discover and build memories with the longstanding treat.

"By building these flavors for fans, we build up more occasions and more opportunities for our fans to just create these memorable experiences," he said.