Taco Bell offers shrimp taco LTOTaco Bell offers shrimp taco LTO

Alan J. Liddle

IRVINE Calif. Coinciding with the Lenten season and in keeping with an expanding line of more healthful fare, Taco Bell is offering a Pacific Shrimp Taco for a limited time.

The new taco features six non-fried shrimp marinated in a variety of Mexican spices, served in a warm flour tortilla and topped with shredded lettuce, Fiesta Salsa and Avocado Ranch Sauce. It is the quick-service chain’s first systemwide seafood item since 1986, when it offered a “seafood salad,” and it is available a la carte for $2.79 and as part of two combination meals.

Rob Poetsch, spokesman for Taco Bell Corp., parent of the Irvine-based chain of nearly 5,600 restaurants, said one of the combos features two Pacific Shrimp Tacos and a large drink for $5.99. The other amounts to what Poetsch confirmed is likely to be Taco Bell’s first ever “surf-and-turf” offering, which teams a shrimp taco with a Steak Taco and a large drink for $5.49.

“While consumers rank Taco Bell as the value leader in QSR, we see an opportunity to also offer them high quality products,” said Lidija Davidson, Taco Bell's director of marketing. “The Pacific Shrimp Taco is just one of many menu items we’re launching that showcase a key quality ingredient.”

The shrimp taco also fits in with Taco Bell's emphasis on its more healthful fare, like its Fresco line of menu items with no more than 9 grams of fat. The new shrimp offering has 180 calories and 7 grams of total fat.

Anumber of quick-service chains, including Jack in the Box, Long John Silver’s, McDonald’s and Popeyes, have recently added or featured seafood items for Lent, the 40-day, pre-Easter season when Christians give up meat or personal vices, which began on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 16. Wienerschntizel, the 350-unit hot dog specialist based in Irvine, Calif., is among this crowd, with a Lenten offering of fried white fish fingers in a flour tortilla wrap for $1.99, “Sea Dog” sandwich, $1.99, and fish-and-chips, $3.29.

Contact Alan J. Liddle at [email protected].