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McDonald's has quietly made a major change to its burgers.
The fast food chain announced on Wednesday that it has eliminated all conventional hamburgers from preservatives and artificial flavors, as well as artificial colors. According to the company, nearly two-thirds of hamburgers and sandwiches have artificial ingredients cut (provided that customers retain the pickle, which has not changed yet).
The changes made to the menu are part of what McDonald's executives call a "trip" trying to change the way people view the chain, which has long been considered a villain of the industry fast food.
"We think this is improving the perception of McDonald's customers," said Wednesday McDonald's president, Chris Kempczinski, during a media call.
In addition to cutting artificial ingredients from food, McDonald's has remodeled restaurants, added a table service and installed kiosks.
"Some of the things we are announcing today are going to be more relevant to some customers than to others," Kempczinski said. "But all these movements are designed to lean on each other".
At the same time, McDonald's can not lose customers who focus solely on value when they eat in chain restaurants. According to Kempczinski, the cutting of artificial ingredients was not exorbitant, and McDonalds has absorbed all the additional costs instead of raising prices.
Reduce prices while repairing reputations
According to industry insiders, attention to nutrition and "clean" menus is needed to compete in the traditional foodservice sector, even though chains struggle to keep prices extremely low.
"We are in the midst of new commitments to standards we have never seen before," said Jeremy Scott, an analyst at Mizuho, at Business Insider. Speaking more generally about industry trends, Scott said chains saw a cascading effect of one chain after another come and make promises like sugar reduction, withdrawal artificial ingredients or the reduction of antibiotics.
"You have baby boomers watching the diets," said John Hamburger, the founder of the specialty publication Franchise Times Corp. "You have young people who learn very young to follow their diet they put in their mouths."
At the same time, fast food chains struggled to conquer budget buyers.
"Customers, who are people who love fast food, will go to multiple outlets depending on who has the best deal," said Kevin Orzan, McDonald's CFO, at the same time. an appeal to investors in July. "I think it's in this area that we have not been as competitive as we should, because some of our competitors have made progress on the transaction side."
McDonald's has launched its $ 1 $ 2 $ 3 menu in early 2018, with the goal of providing a platform of constant value that the chain has lost with the death of the legendary Dollar Menu. A McDonald's more upscale might seem to disagree with these efforts.
Kempczinski, for one, is not in agreement. On Tuesday, he said that value and quality are "two sides of the same coin".
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