The Promotion
Burger King is rolling out a Dragon Ball Super limited-time menu across its more than 19,000 U.S. and international locations beginning September 1, leaning on the anime franchise's multigenerational pull to drive combo traffic and app orders. The promotion, developed with Toei Animation, centers on a bundled "Dragon Ball Super Power Up Pack" designed to capture both nostalgia-driven adults and younger guests through collectible premiums — a mechanic that has long moved transactions at QSR counters and drive-thrus alike.
What's on the Menu
The Power Up Pack leads with 10-piece crispy white-meat chicken nuggets served with a new Super Saiyan Sauce — a sweet, savory teriyaki-style dip inspired by the franchise's characters. The beverage component is a Mango Peach Lemonade loaded with mango-flavored popping boba, branded as the Dragon Ball Burst Lemonade. Medium fries round out the bundle. Each pack also includes one of six exclusive character figurines — Goku, Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku, Vegeta, Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Vegeta, Piccolo, and Beerus — plus limited-edition packaging and a themed crown.
For younger guests, a Dragon Ball Super King Jr. Meal arrives simultaneously, offering a choice of hamburger, cheeseburger, or 4- or 6-piece chicken nuggets with a side, drink, themed crown, and one of the six figurines. The kids' meal angle matters for franchisees: it extends the promotion's reach beyond the core anime-fan demographic and into family daypart visits, where average check sizes tend to be higher than single-adult orders.
Channel and Operator Context
For c-store operators tracking QSR competitive moves, Burger King's latest LTO illustrates the continued pressure on dispensed-beverage and foodservice programs at the forecourt. Specialty lemonade SKUs with textural elements — in this case, popping boba — are migrating from bubble tea shops and fast-casual into mainstream QSR, a trend that puts incremental pressure on convenience foodservice operators to refresh their own dispensed-beverage and proprietary sauce offerings to stay relevant.
Collectible-premium bundles have also proven durable at driving repeat visits and social sharing, a dynamic that loyalty-program operators in the convenience channel have begun replicating through exclusive merchandise tied to app-based purchases. Burger King's own BK App and BK.com are the primary digital order channels for the promotion, reinforcing the chain's push to migrate transactions to owned platforms — a strategy that c-store loyalty programs are mirroring with growing urgency as third-party aggregator fees compress margins.
Joel Yashinsky, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King U.S. & Canada, framed the collaboration as an experience play rather than a straight product launch, noting the brand sees the Dragon Ball Super IP as a vehicle for family engagement alongside the new menu items. Nearly all of Burger King's 19,000-plus units are independently franchised, meaning execution consistency across participating locations will be the key operational variable for this promotion.
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.
