Taco Bell has a long history of positioning itself as an alternative to traditional fast food burgers. Famously, its early 2000s “Think Outside the Bun” campaign was a direct reference to burger-selling competitors. Back in the 1980s, in an effort to really stand out, it ran multiple commercials pushing a new seafood salad. Despite corporate confidence and a big marketing boost, the salad didn’t last long on the menu, and seafood hasn’t been sold at Taco Bell since around 2011, when it offered its Pacific Shrimp Tacos. Today, the internet is rife with rumors about the legendary salad, and they offer up one of two explanations for why it vanished: Either poor sales were to blame, or, it’s alleged, the salad caused food poisoning in several customers and was discontinued.
The seafood salad sounds great on paper. It was served in a crunchy, edible tortilla bowl filled with fresh veggies, bay shrimp, snow crab, and white fish. If you like seafood, you’d probably enjoy this. Commercials from 1986 targeted not just hamburgers but fish sandwiches offered at other fast food places, asking why you’d bother ordering fish if it just looks like another burger, and then wowing you with its fresh and tasty-looking salad. In the Pepsi-Cola Company’s 1986 Annual Report, it references the salad as something that attracted an “increasing number of consumers.”
Taco Bell’s seafood salad may not be worth resurrecting
While Taco Bell is known for re-releasing classic menu items from time to time, the seafood salad may not be one people are clamoring for. There’s a definite sentiment online that this doesn’t look all that appealing. It would fit right in on our list of discontinued Taco Bell items we don’t miss at all.
You’ll find the rumors of food poisoning repeated on Reddit threads. But all of the articles that make those claims are contemporary, mostly written since the year 2010, and none cite any contemporaneous source for what they have stated. So is any of it true? Hard to say. Also, it may not even matter anymore. After all, if people believe it and the story is widespread enough, that could potentially kill any chance of the salad’s resurrection.
Besides, even without rumors, seafood has long been a hard sell at restaurants not known for it. Even McDonald’s has struggled to roll out newer items. The infamous McLobster, which shows up in New England now and then, could never manage a national rollout. McFish Bites were introduced in February 2013, and by the next month, there were already reports of poor sales. Will seafood ever make a comeback? Maybe at Taco Bell’s next annual Live Más Live event. Time will tell.
