McDonald’s Heads Back to Its Roots

The fast-food burger chain has decided to focus on its core products and customers.

March 03, 2017

CHICAGO – Over the past five years, McDonald’s has lost around 500 million orders in the United States due to its attempts to widen its customer base, the Wall Street Journal reports. This shift has triggered soul-searching at the burger chain after its own customer survey found McDonald’s customers weren’t leaving for healthier fare—they were switching to other quick-service chains.

“We don’t need to be a different McDonald’s, but a better McDonald’s,” said Lucy Brady, McDonald’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development. Rather than keeping its core customers happy, McDonald’s experimented with higher-priced burgers, and added healthy entrees like oatmeal, salads and snack wraps, which ended up not selling well.

“We’re not the same McDonald’s we were two years ago or even six months ago,” said McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook of the chain’s refocus on its regular customers.

The new emphasis will revolve around increasing the quality of its food to keep current customers coming back and enticing former customers to return. While no specific plans were shared, McDonald’s is testing new cooking methods for its burgers, which includes using fresh (not frozen) beef in Oklahoma and Texas.

The company also has its eyes on coffee, with improvements slated for coffee presentation and service, as well as better pastries at McCafe stations. McDonald’s will continue to experiment with delivery options, which it is testing with Uber in Florida. “Delivery is the most significant disruption in the restaurant industry in our lifetime,” Brady said.

Mobile ordering and payment will be coming to 20,000 restaurants, including those in the United States, later this year. The chain will spend more than a billion dollars to refresh locations worldwide. McDonald’s also has expanded its kiosk ordering.

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