"I worked at Wendy’s in high school. For me, that item is the chili.
Whenever a burger is cooked it is only considered “good” for a certain amount of time. So many minutes after cooking and the burger didn’t get used it would be thrown in a bucket next to the grill. At the end of each shift the person dumps all the old burgers into a larger bucket of old burgers which may or may not be covered. They also may be from xays prior. Overnight they chill, the grease congeals and the meat turns pretty grey and weird. This meat may not be frozen, but it is still pretty hard to break up. So the person making chili dumps it in a big collander, runs hot water over it, and mashes it into tiny pieces again.
Now the soggy, greyish, lukewarm day old burger meat is ready to be used in the chili."
MichaelHollaback