McDonald’s Corp is betting that a slimmed-down menu and a push toward greater customization would help it reverse a troubling decline in US sales. The fast-food giant aims to simplify the dining experience after concluding that a proliferation of menu offerings slowed service and confused customers.
McDonald’s wants to get back to “where a customer can come in and understand very quickly what the order is,” Mcdonalds chief executive officer Don Thompson said.
The chain plans to eliminate eight product offerings and trim its number of meal combinations from 16 to 11. It is to cut products that are less popular and take more time to prepare.
McDonald’s plans to keep the “Big Mac” and other mainstays, but trim the number of “wraps” from three to one and reduce the number of sauces on offer.
Eliminating the excess menu options “makes it easier on the ordering process and makes it easier on fulfillment when a person is putting that order together,” Thompson said.
The plan, dubbed the “experience of the future,” follows news last week that McDonald’s global sales fell 2.2 percent last month, with US sales tumbling 4.6 percent. The fast-food giant has suffered amid rising concerns about obesity and other health problems associated with the type of food it offers.
At the same time, competition is fierce and growing, not only from conventional rivals like Burger King and Wendy’s Co, but also from smaller chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill, which touts better-quality ingredients and an emphasis on customization of its burritos and other offerings.
To address changing consumer tastes, McDonald’s is unveiling “Create Your Taste” options at 2,000 of its 14,000 US restaurants that will permit customers to make choices on buns, cheese and toppings.
McDonald’s USA president Mike Andres described customization as a strategy for long-term growth.
“One of the beauties of this Create Your Taste idea ... is that we don’t need to have a big menu board to offer variety,” he said. “The variety is really determined by the customer themselves individually, independently. We can offer these high-quality ingredients made any way.”
McDonald’s garners 80 percent of its sales from a “very small” number of products, Andres said. The aim is to leverage these menu staples and boost sales of the most popular items with customization.
During last week’s meeting, McDonald’s took Wall Street analysts to a Create Your Taste restaurant near its headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The product “adds a premium burger option to McDonald’s. Price and wait time for the product are high by McDonald’s standards,” Bank of America said. “It is unclear how much demand there is for this upgraded experience at McDonald’s.”
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