The fried-shrimp program at Popeyes is sharing menu real estate with a new arrival: the chain's Honey Chicken Biscuit, priced at $5 and available system-wide beginning September 28 across more than 4,000 U.S. and international restaurants, as well as the Popeyes app and Popeyes.com.
Founded in New Orleans in 1972, Popeyes built its identity on Louisiana-style cooking that explicitly includes fried shrimp alongside its signature chicken tenders and bone-in bird. The brand's seafood SKU remains one of the more consistent shellfish offerings in the quick-service segment, giving the chain a dual protein story that few national QSR competitors can replicate at comparable scale.
The New Item
The Honey Chicken Biscuit pairs the chain's bone-in-style fried chicken fillet — marketed under the "THAT Chicken from Popeyes" national campaign — with a larger-format buttermilk biscuit and two honey-sauce sachets. The $5 suggested retail positions it as an all-daypart option, targeting breakfast and snack occasions where the chain's fried-shrimp plate has traditionally had less traction. "The Honey Chicken Biscuit is exactly that: our craveable chicken, our iconic buttermilk biscuit, and sweet honey sauce, crafted into one new sandwich," said Matt Rubin, Popeyes Chief Marketing Officer.
Seafood Shelf Context
For seafood supply-chain observers, the Popeyes system matters because its fried-shrimp volumes — sourced at scale for a 4,000-plus-unit footprint — represent a meaningful slice of the foodservice shrimp demand curve. Any menu shift that alters daypart traffic or overall transaction counts at a chain this size carries downstream implications for shrimp procurement, IQF breaded-shrimp inventory, and value-added processing contracts. The new biscuit sandwich does not replace the shrimp offering, but its launch as a $5 entry-level item signals Popeyes is competing aggressively on price and convenience — dynamics that historically lift overall store traffic and, with it, attachment rates on seafood LTOs and permanent menu seafood items. Operators and distributors supplying the chain's restaurant and foodservice channel should monitor whether the incremental traffic from a successful chicken-biscuit launch translates into higher shrimp pull-through at the unit level.
The rollout also arrives as the broader aquaculture and seafood supply market watches QSR chains for signals on breaded-shrimp and value-added shellfish demand heading into Q4 — traditionally a stronger season for seafood LTOs tied to holiday and Lenten planning cycles. Popeyes' decision to anchor its fall innovation around chicken rather than shrimp leaves the seafood slot open for potential Q1 promotion, a pattern the chain has used in prior years to drive Lenten traffic.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
