Taco Bell Gets Hooked on Sales of Snack Foods : Fast food: After getting taste of the market, Irvine-based food chain wants more. It will soon begin selling its ‘fiesta size’ dishes nationwide.

Fast-food executives are hoping to make big sales gains by selling smaller products.

The latest convert is Taco Bell Corp., which Tuesday announced a national rollout of miniaturized Mexican food items selling at the downscaled price of 39 cents that it hopes will leave snack-crazed consumers hungry for more.

In making its announcement, Taco Bell joins Burger King and fellow Pepsico subsidiary Kentucky Fried Chicken in discovering that a ready market exists for a food line to fill the gap in the traditionally slow hours between lunch and dinner.

Taco Bell is hoping that the hard- and soft-shell beef tacos, bean burritos and bean tostadas will bolster the image it is trying to project as having some of the cheapest and most palatable offerings among the national chains.

The new so-called “fiesta size” items take just as much labor to create as the regular menu even though they sell for less, Taco Bell officials said. But the chain expects to make up the difference in volume: test marketing has shown that consumers want to buy more of them at a time since the new products are 40% smaller.

The company says its customers want a smaller, cheaper taco. “Basically, it offers the consumer a lot more variety and versatility,” said Tim Ryan, a vice president of the Irvine-based company. “Our research shows that customers would appreciate snack-sized items.”

The new items have been tested since the start of the year in Southern California, Dallas, Oklahoma City and parts of Ohio. Ryan said the national introduction will be backed by a $12-million promotional campaign that will, among other things, underscore that “fiesta size” is a catchy way of saying small.

Small has been beautiful for some chains. Burger King introduced “Burger Bundles” as a promotional item in the late 1980s, a muffin-size burger modeled after those produced by the famous White Castle burger chain in the East. They proved to be such a hit that Burger King brought back a reformulated, better-tasting version last year as “Burger Buddies,” selling for 89 cents a pair.

“We’ve been real pleased with them,” said Michael Evans, a Burger King spokesman. “A lot of times we’re seeing people buy them if they want a light lunch.” The product is also a demonstration of how discount-priced items are grabbing customers’ attention. A pair of Burger Buddies costs about 43% as much as a Whopper.

Kentucky Fried Chicken introduced its own downsized chicken sandwich, Chicken Littles, to conquer the snack market. But Janet Lowder, a restaurant industry consultant based in Rancho Palos Verdes, said the introduction met with mixed success. Franchisees balked at having to buy the equipment to assemble them, and customers loved them so much that some stopped buying the higher-priced fried chicken buckets.

A Kentucky Fried Chicken spokesman said that Chicken Littles, which are still offered, are mainly aimed at the children’s market.

As for Taco Bell’s new products, Lowder said the chain “could run into the same problem” of customers trading down from higher-priced items. But, she added, that snack could rob convenience stores of the market for quick between-meal snacks. And they also address a consumer trend toward lighter eating.

“I think as people become more health-conscious, they are eating smaller portions,” she said.