Why Burger King Is Called Hungry Jack's in Australia

When Burger King Corporation looked at Australia in the early 1970s, it found the Burger King trademark already registered to a takeaway food shop in Adelaide. Trademark law is territorial: registering a name in the United States gives you nothing in Australia, and a local business that registered first has the stronger claim regardless of how large the overseas company is.

Rather than fight it or buy the name out, Burger King took the pragmatic route. It offered the Australian franchise to Jack Cowin, a Canadian who had moved to Perth, and handed him a shortlist of alternative trademarks the company already owned in Australia through its parent, the Pillsbury Company.

Cowin picked Hungry Jack, a name Pillsbury used on a line of pancake mix. He added the possessive apostrophe and the S, and Hungry Jack's opened its first Australian restaurant in Perth in 1971.

The detail people miss is that Hungry Jack's was never simply a rebadged Burger King run from Miami. Cowin took the franchise and built the network as an Australian business, and the menu diverged accordingly. That is why the Australian menu today carries items with no American equivalent: the Whopper Junior at $10.65, the Chicken Royale at $13.95, the Jack's Cafe barista counter running at 489 restaurants, and the Frozen Coke at $2.00.

The chain also went its own way on pricing. The permanent low price ranges, Penny Pinchers and Super Stunners, are Australian inventions rather than imports. A Cheeseburger Super Stunner at $7.95 for a burger, chips and a drink at a fixed permanent price has no direct Burger King equivalent.

In the 1990s Burger King decided it wanted the Australian market under its own name and began franchising Burger King restaurants here directly, arguing Cowin had breached his agreement by not opening restaurants fast enough.

Cowin sued. In 2001 the New South Wales Supreme Court found that Burger King had breached its contract and acted in bad faith, and awarded Hungry Jack's around forty six million dollars in damages. The Burger King branded restaurants in Australia were converted to Hungry Jack's, and the name question was settled for good.

That is why there are no Burger King restaurants in Australia today. Not because the trademark is still blocked, but because the company tried to take the market back and comprehensively lost.

People who have eaten at both notice the differences immediately. The Australian menu runs 165 items, and a fair share of them exist nowhere in the Burger King system. The Grill Masters Angus range, the Jack's Fried Chicken line, the Brekky Hunger Tamers at $17.45, and the Jack'd Up Sodas are all Hungry Jack's rather than Burger King products.

What is shared is the core. The Whopper at $12.35 is the same flame grilled burger, and the flame grill itself is the common inheritance. Every beef patty at Hungry Jack's goes over an open flame rather than onto a griddle, which is where the smoky note comes from and what has separated both chains from their competition since the 1950s.

The beef is Australian, which is a difference that matters more than the name. The full Australian menu with prices is here.