What the NRA's 28 FABI Award Winners Tell Us About Where QSR Menus Are Headed

The National Restaurant Association announced its 2026 FABI Award winners on March 19, and the list of 28 products reads less like a celebration of novelty and more like a map of where operator purchasing decisions are heading for the next 18 months. Ten products received the additional distinction of FABI Favorite. All winners will be on display at the NRA Show, May 16-19 at McCormick Place in Chicago.

If you've been watching FABI trends for a few years, the 2026 class sends a clear message: the innovation conversation has shifted. Protein is the organizing principle. Global flavors have crossed from "trend" to "expectation." And plant-based, after a long run at the center of the FABI universe, has settled into one slot among many rather than a category unto itself.

For operators building LTO calendars through 2027, these signals matter. The FABI Awards aren't just industry self-congratulation. They reflect what innovation teams at the major ingredient and foodservice product companies have been working on for 18 to 24 months, which means they're a reasonably reliable leading indicator of what menu R&D teams will be sourcing when the next development cycle kicks off.

Protein Wins, Everything Else Supports It

The single clearest theme in the 2026 FABI class: protein content is no longer just a marketing angle. It's an engineering requirement. More winning products foregrounded protein than any other single characteristic.

Egglife Egg White Wraps exemplify the shift. Each serving delivers 11 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrates. That's a macro profile that fits paleo, keto, high-protein, and general "eating cleaner" positioning simultaneously. For a QSR operator, a wrapper that adds 11 grams of protein to any build without changing the flavor profile or cooking procedure is an ingredient that pulls weight across multiple dayparts and multiple audiences.

The strategic value goes beyond consumer appeal. High-protein wraps let operators create premium positioning on existing proteins. A chicken tender wrap at a standard protein gram count is a $7 item. The same build in an egg white wrap with an 11g protein call-out is a $9 to $11 item with a distinct audience and a defensible price point.

Halal Beef Kefta Links were another protein standout. Ready-to-heat format, Middle Eastern spice profile, halal certified. That combination addresses several operator needs at once: speed of service (ready-to-heat eliminates preparation steps), a growing consumer segment (the U.S. Muslim population exceeds 3.5 million), and differentiation in a beef category that has been crowded and commoditized. Halal certification is also increasingly valuable to non-Muslim consumers who associate it with quality standards.

Smoked duck breast showing up in the winners list is the highest-end signal in the class. Duck isn't a QSR protein in the traditional sense, but fast casual has been migrating upmarket steadily. A ready-to-use smoked duck product reduces the barrier to entry for operators who want a premium LTO without the labor investment that protein preparation typically requires. The fact that it won a FABI suggests foodservice development teams believe there's a viable channel for it.

Global Flavors Are No Longer "Adventurous"

The FABI class used to include one or two globally-inspired products as evidence that the industry was paying attention to demographic shifts. In 2026, global flavor profiles are woven through the winner list in a way that signals normalization, not novelty.

Elote Butter is worth examining closely. Mexican street corn has been one of the most consistent flavor trends in foodservice for three consecutive years. Technomic and Datassential have both tracked it moving from regional specialty to broad menu presence. An Elote Butter product ready for foodservice application means operators can now execute that flavor profile without the prep complexity of actual elote preparation. The winner selection affirms that this flavor has completed the journey from trend to pantry staple.

Moroccan Plant-Based Meat Cubes represent two trends converging. The plant-based format is there, but it's being carried by the Moroccan flavor identity, not the other way around. That's a meaningful inversion from 2022 or 2023, when plant-based products won awards primarily for being plant-based, with flavor as a secondary consideration. Now the flavor profile is doing the work.

Hibiscus flower beverage concentrate rounds out the global picture. Hibiscus has deep roots in Mexican, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern food traditions, and it's been appearing on specialty beverage menus with increasing frequency. A concentrate format makes it accessible to any operator with a beverage program, removing the sourcing and preparation friction that kept it on the fringes.

The beverage category is worth watching separately. Dutch Bros and other specialty beverage chains have demonstrated that flavor complexity drives repeat visits in ways that standard carbonated beverages cannot match. A hibiscus concentrate that a QSR operator can add to a beverage menu at low cost and zero preparation complexity is exactly the kind of product that wins FABI attention because it solves a real operational problem.

The Textural Turn

One signal in the 2026 class that isn't getting enough attention: textural complexity as a product differentiator.

Salt-and-vinegar cheese curds are a specific kind of product decision. Cheese curds already carry a textural identity, distinct from standard shredded or sliced cheese. The salt-and-vinegar application adds a flavor layer that is intensely snackable and social. From an operator perspective, these work as a side item, a topping, or a standalone snack SKU with strong shareability and impulse purchase characteristics. The flavor profile is bold enough to generate online conversation, which matters in a marketing environment where earned media from food content drives meaningful traffic.

This connects to a broader pattern in menu innovation: QSR operators increasingly need items that perform well visually and generate customer-created content, not just items that taste good in isolation. Textural and visually distinctive items photograph better, describe better in short-form social content, and drive more organic buzz than products that are excellent but visually neutral.

What Happened to Plant-Based?

Plant-based protein dominated FABI cycles in 2022 and 2023. The category rode the Impossible and Beyond wave, with foodservice product developers across every segment introducing plant-based versions of beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. FABI winners in those years skewed heavily toward the category.

The 2026 class includes plant-based products, including the Moroccan Meat Cubes mentioned above, but the category no longer defines the conversation. That shift mirrors what has happened in the broader market. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat both reported significant sales declines through 2024 and 2025. McDonald's discontinued the McPlant in the U.S. Burger King pulled back its Impossible Whopper footprint. Several chains that added plant-based options during the peak cycle quietly removed them when sales didn't materialize.

The category isn't gone. It's finding its actual market size, which appears to be smaller and more defined than the 2021-2022 hype cycle suggested. Operators who built entire LTO strategies around plant-based protein pivots have been recalibrating. The FABI class reflects that recalibration: plant-based is one option among many, succeeding when it brings additional value (a compelling flavor identity, operational convenience, a specific dietary certification) rather than when plant-based alone is the selling point.

Operational Efficiency as Innovation

The 2026 FABI winners aren't just selected for consumer appeal. Several winners across the class share a quality that matters more to operators than to end customers: they reduce labor, preparation steps, or equipment requirements.

Ready-to-heat formats appear repeatedly. Halal Beef Kefta Links. Smoked duck breast. These products are essentially finished proteins that require heat application and plating, nothing more. For an industry dealing with a structural labor shortage, products that eliminate skilled preparation steps without sacrificing quality represent genuine operational innovation, not just flavor innovation.

This tracks with what operators have been telling consultants and suppliers for two years: the labor math has changed permanently. The Federal minimum wage debate aside, state-level floors have pushed average QSR labor costs well above where they were in 2019, and the labor market for experienced kitchen staff remains tight in most major markets. Products that let operators execute a complex-seeming menu with less skilled labor are worth paying a premium for.

What Operators Should Take From This

The FABI Awards are a purchasing signal, not just a PR exercise. Suppliers don't enter products in FABI without believing there's a viable foodservice market. Winners get commercial attention from chain purchasing teams. Several past FABI winners have gone from independent products to chain-wide contracted supply relationships within 18 months of their award.

For operators building 2026-2027 LTO calendars, the 2026 class points toward a few strategic themes.

Protein content should be explicit and prominent. Consumers who are tracking protein intake, and that population has grown substantially with the GLP-1 adoption curve and broader fitness culture, respond to specific numbers. "High protein" as a vague descriptor performs worse than "11g protein per serving" as a specific claim.

Global flavor profiles are now expected, not exceptional. Menus that don't include at least one globally-inspired flavor profile feel dated. The question has shifted from whether to include global flavors to which global flavors fit your brand and operational capacity.

Textural differentiation drives social performance. Items that are visually distinctive and texturally interesting generate more organic content than items that are excellent but neutral. For chains where social content is a primary marketing channel, this is a menu engineering consideration, not just a culinary one.

The FABI class also implies something about where procurement conversations are heading. Suppliers presenting ready-to-heat globally-flavored high-protein products are solving the problems operators are actually asking about. Operators who show up to the NRA Show in May knowing which problems they want solved will find more useful conversations than those who walk the floor without a clear purchasing agenda.

The 28 winners will all be available for operator evaluation at McCormick Place starting May 16. If your procurement or culinary team isn't planning to attend with specific sourcing questions, they should be.