LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. – Responding to declining same-store sales, falling stock prices and a shrinking base of younger customers, the world's largest fast-food chain is planning to vastly expand its "Create Your Taste" test platform, according to an exclusive report in USA Today.

What has until now been a tiny test in four Southern California stores is immediately expanding to 30 locations in five more states — Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, Missouri and Pennsylvania — and in 2015 to 2,000 U.S. locations, or about one in seven of the 14,000 domestic McDonald's restaurants.

Create Your Taste lets customers skip the counter and head to tablet-like kiosks where they can customize everything about their burger, including the type of bun, variety of cheese, toppings and sauces and even the type of protein, as McDonald’s adds chicken as an option to the line-up.

While this new customization option is a bit of a risk for the fast-food giant — customized Create Your Taste meals will take significantly longer to prepare, about 7 minutes total by some estimates — they’re banking on the fact that consumers are willing to wait a bit longer for a more customized experience. This new approach is particularly geared to attract Millennials to McDonald’s, a demographic that the chain needs but has not had much success with lately, as teens and young adults continue to abandon the chain for what they perceive as fresher, healthier and more customizable menu choices at chains like Chipotle, Panera and Five Guys.

Another risk in the new Create Your Taste menu is the price: At one test location a customized burger with a medium drink and fries is $8.29. And because it takes from four to seven minutes to prepare orders from the custom platform, it can't even be sold at the drive-thru window — where many McDonald's do up to 70% of their business.

As USA Today writes: “This is the McDonald's of the present racing to become the McDonald's of the future.”