October 31, 2026 · happened: On 2 January 2017, on Twitter

Wendy's to a "never frozen" troll: where do you keep cold things, then?

On 2 January 2017 a Twitter user going by Thuggy-D (@NHride) accused Wendy's of lying with its "fresh, never frozen" slogan: your beef is frozen and we all know it. After one standard reply, the chain's account turned the question around: "Where do you store cold things that aren't frozen?" When the user hit back by dragging McDonald's into it, Wendy's closed with a line about not needing to bring them into this just because he forgot refrigerators existed. CBS News covered the exchange, which became one of the most quoted brand-Twitter moments of that year.

«Where do you store cold things that aren't frozen?»

The trick is that Wendy's doesn't defend itself — it asks a question. Handing the burden of proof back in six words leaves the other guy explaining how a fridge works, and he loses on his own from there. It's also worth noting what the brand doesn't do: no insults, no sales figures, no link to a "our commitment to quality" page. That's the difference between defending a marketing claim and defending a fact: when the fact is on your side, brevity is enough. Mind you, this only works if the fact is true; the same tweet with genuinely frozen beef would have been suicide.

Source: CBS News