The Crunchwrap Supreme was designed to solve a specific problem: how to eat a taco while driving. It became the fastest-selling item Taco Bell has ever launched.
Where the Crunchwrap Supreme came from
Introduced 2005
It appeared as a limited item on 22 June 2005 and joined the permanent menu in 2006. Lois Carson of Taco Bell's food innovation team designed it specifically to be eaten on the move without falling apart.
- It sold 51 million units in its first six weeks — the fastest-selling item in Taco Bell's history.
- The engineering is the point: warm fillings sit on one side of a crisp corn tostada and cold fillings on the other, so the lettuce and sour cream never meet the hot beef until you bite. The whole thing is folded hexagonally and grilled shut.
Making one at home
The trick is the tostada divider. Warm seasoned beef and nacho cheese sauce go on a large flour tortilla, then a crisp corn tostada, then the cold layer — sour cream, shredded lettuce, diced tomato. Fold the edges of the tortilla up over the middle in overlapping pleats to make a hexagon, then grill it seam-side down until it seals.
A homemade version will not match the figures above — those are Taco Bell's own
published numbers for the restaurant item.