McDonald's USA is upgrading its burgers
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McDonald's, which has been focusing on upgrading its core items to boost sales, is rolling out a series of changes designed to improve its signature burgers.
McDonald's, which has been focusing on upgrading its core items to boost sales, is rolling out a series of changes designed to improve its signature burgers.
Buns will be softer. Cheese, gooier. Onion will be added to patties right on the grill. And the Big Mac sauce? There will be more of it.
"We found that small changes, like tweaking our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting our grill settings for a better sear, added up to a big difference in making our burgers more flavourful than ever," said chef Chad Schafer, senior director of culinary innovation of McDonald's USA, in a statement Monday. The upgrades apply to the Big Mac and the McDouble burger as well as the classic cheeseburger, double cheeseburger and hamburger.
The improvements were first made to burgers in international markets, the company said, and have already arrived in some US cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas. They'll be available nationally by early next year.
The changes follow other improvements to key menu items.
In 2018, McDonald's announced that it was switching to fresh beef for its Quarter Pounders, a complicated move with a big sales payoff. In 2021, it launched a crispy chicken sandwich to replace previous iterations — a relatively late arrival in the chicken sandwich wars, but one that seems to have resonated with McDonald's customers. .
"We are gaining market share in both chicken and beef," thanks to improved burgers and items like the chicken sandwich, said McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski during a January analyst call. "In an environment where our customers are looking for the simple and familiar, our core menu items have never been more relevant," he said. In the US, sales at stores open at least 13 months jumped 5.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022, rising 10.3% for the whole year.
