Wendy's Secret Bubble Bath Burger Revealed

Two Bathers in Restaurant Sink Discovered by Police

A secret program to develop a new low-calorie hamburger for the Wendy's fast-food restaurant chain was unmasked when a South Carolina teen-ager picked up the wrong roll of film on his family's kitchen counter and dropped it off for processing.

Doobie Ledbetter, a high school senior who lives in Advance in Davie County, thought he was taking in a roll of film with pictures of him and his friends drinking beer and bashing rural mailboxes. Instead, he picked up a roll of film his father, Robert, had used to document a secret after hours research project at a local Wendy's.

When the photo technician routinely looked at the images that came out of an automated processing machine at the CVS drugstore in Advance, he called police. The photos showed two men in bathing suits taking luxurious bubble baths in what was obviously a large kitchen sink in a restaurant kitchen.

Davie County sheriff's deputies backtracked to Doobie and then his father. Wendy's little secret was out:

The chain is developing a revolutionary low-cal, high-taste, mad cow-free Bubble Burger.

Robert Ledbetter, accosted by reporters outside his home as he left for work as an assistant manager at the local Wendy's, refused comment, except to acknowledge that he was the bather in the frilly bathing suit that resembled a ballerina's tutu. "Yeah, it's me and you guys can shove it," he said.

The identity of the other bather was unclear. A sheriff's deputy, who asked not to be identified, said he thought it was a Wendy's scientist from "the home office."

A spokesperson at Wendy's Dublin, Ohio, headquarters confirmed what was in the police report and a report by Davie County health inspectors, who were called to the restaurant. The police report described the activity in the photos as "secret research project for new hamburger."

"We have a large test kitchen whose mission is to develop new products that meet our customers' desires for nutritious, healthy and safe food," the Wendy's spokesperson said. "You read the same things we do. Consumers want low-cal, low-carb, high-fat and no mad cow."

The role that bubble baths might play in developing Wendy's new hamburger remains unclear.

"There's been some references in some of the mad cow disease literature that suggests prions might be susceptible to bubble baths," said Hortense Wiggins, professor of food science at Ohio State University in Columbus. "Or maybe they're after the bubble bath taste experience."

Prions are proteins that are believed to transmit mad cow disease. They can't be killed or treated through vaccines or drugs.

Tracked down in the parking lot of Davie County High School as he and two friends were getting into a pickup truck, Doobie Ledbetter said he knew nothing about the Wendy's project.

"Who knows what my dad does. I didn't even know he worked at Wendy's," he said. "I thought it was my roll of film. He shouldn't have put his roll there on the counter."

Robert Ledbetter's wife, Candice, said she was sorry the project had ended. "I liked it when he came home from the late shift smelling like bubble bath. Now it's back to the same old stale kitchen grease smell." March 12, 2004

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