
McDonald's CEO promises better food - drsilberman
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/04/investing/mcdonalds-turnaround-plan-steve-easterbrook/index.html?iid=Lead
======
bedhead
I'm not snobby enough to never go to McDonald's (a McMuffin aint too bad in
the morning after a long night out) but I agree that most of the menu,
specifically the burgers, taste artificial. I joke that their burgers don't
taste like meat, they simply taste like "McDonald's" as if it's its own
patented flavor. Anyway, if only because of their size alone (35k stores)
McDonald's can't materially improve better food any more than Sears can
compete with Amazon or IBM can become a cloud company.

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sageabilly
This seems like a bit of blustering from a CEO who is concerned about
addressing shareholder worries. I really do not see McDonald's EVER competing
head to head with Shake Shack or even Five Guys, because how would McDonald's
overcome their legacy of being the go-to place for cheap food? They'd have to
require complete re-vamps of their entire process up to and including total
overhauls of the kitchens in most locations.

Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.

~~~
breitling
I really don't think it's cheap food anymore (atleast, in Canada). An outing
there with my wife and my daughter easily costs around $25. It's not nearly as
cheap as it used to be. In that price range, I have lots of other options.

I only go there to give my daughter some play time in their play area during
the colder months.

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saturdaysaint
I think there are sea changes going on in food comparable to those that have
shaken up the music industry. Pointing to Chipotle and Five Guys barely
scratches the surface. Look at rapidly declining sales of Budweiser and Coca-
Cola products - there's something bigger happening.

There's probably a book to be written on the topic, but I think social media -
Yelp, Instagram, Pinterest - are changing eating by giving good restaurants
and food/beverage producers powerful word of mouth marketing. At least in the
Detroit area, there's been a blossoming of really good restaurants (ranging
from reasonably priced pubs to fine dining). When I go out to eat, even in an
unfashionable suburb, I expect I can find a place with good craft beers and
decent menu options with ingredients that would have been rare a decade ago.

More to the point with McDonald's, I suspect that it's harder and harder for
them to buy mindshare in a world with all of these channels. They can't
saturate Facebook/IG/Twitter like they saturated the TV and radio airwaves.
It's harder and harder to prop up a mass-produced, mediocre product with a
multi-billion dollar marketing budget.

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amelius
> Do you sell veggie burgers?

> No, we don't currently sell veggie burgers. Although, we are always looking
> to evolve our menu.

[http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/your_questions/our_food/do-
yo...](http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/your_questions/our_food/do-you-sell-
veggie-burgers.html)

~~~
smackfu
Practically, a lot of vegetarians are not going to want their burger cooked on
a grill that is used to cook meat. Which complicates the issue.

~~~
grandalf
The BK veggie burger is pretty good. McDonalds will often say "we can serve
you the burger without the beef pattie on it"

~~~
smackfu
That's what Five Guys does too. My partner the vegetarian is not very
impressed and doesn't go there.

~~~
bunderbunder
I've always been curious to know how much of Qdoba's or Panera's business is
driven by this phenomenon. It takes only one vegetarian to drive a car full of
potential customers away from a place like McDonald's.

That same car full will likely be passing up on Burger King if there are any
other options, mind. IMO the BK Veggie is literally tasteless.

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tmikaeld
It's also about what you get for the price. In Sweden, a McDonalds burger menu
cost about 70 SEK.

If you go to the burger chain Max instead, the price is +- 10 SEK, but the
meat is organic, the bun is of high quality corn and the vegetables are always
fresh. Plus, they don't store the burgers but make them at request. And they
have won taste awards many times.

No wonder McDonalds is struggling when they are no where near the quality of
other chains such as Max. And they should be worried, Max is going
international.

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edgesrazor
A crazy idea might be to start with better evaluation of potential
franchisees. The ones in my area are a comedy of poor management and apathetic
employees.

~~~
slayed0
It's hard not to be apathetic when your job description has become so
stigmatized that it is synonymous with failure ("go get a job at McDonald's").
A math teacher at my old highschool used to hand back McDonald's applications
for employment with failed tests.

~~~
benjohnson
When I see a resume with a "McJob", I'm impressed. It shows me they will work.

My best Unix/FreeBSD admin came out of a crappy Verizon customer support job -
he's been eager to learn, works hard, is appreciative and is really nice to be
around.

------
sjwright
They should just re-import Maccas from Australia back to McDonalds in the US.
Our menu is really quite good and the food is consistently fresh and high
quality within the scope of a hamburger fast food store.

I've visited many countries including the US, UK, France, Norway[0] and
Singapore and I never fail to try out the local offering. But I've always[1]
found the product inferior to the offering we get in Australia.

Look at their latest idea -- [https://mcdonalds.com.au/create-your-
taste](https://mcdonalds.com.au/create-your-taste) \-- and tell me that's not
_awesome._

[0] Curiously the poorest eating experience was in Norway despite topping the
Big Mac Index[2]. I had a beef burger that was dripping with grease and a
chicken burger that tasted like an oversized rubbery chicken nugget in a bun.

[1] Honorable mention goes to McDonald's in Hong Kong which had a Wasabi
Filet-o-Fish limited time menu item. Seriously kick ass.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index)

~~~
sjwright
Related coverage

[http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mcdonalds-rolls-
out-...](http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mcdonalds-rolls-out-create-
your-taste-in-custom-experiences-push/story-fnkgdftz-1227289494851)

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a3n
> But at the end of the day, it all comes down to the food.

Indeed, and this is why I never go there except in one instance: I'm late for
work and I need to eat a sausage and egg sandwich while driving, or be
distracted by hunger until lunch.

I never go there in anticipation, and I never go there on the way home when
I'm too lazy to cook, because there are so many better choices. I just never
go there, except in the one scenario above.

When I was younger I used to go there a lot, and it actually tasted good. The
patty looked like a hamburger patty I might grill at home, and the taste was
juicy and, well, tasty.

Now all the taste and enjoyment has been synergized and efficientized out, and
we're left with a grey, tasteless slab. Bleah. Who would want that, if they
knew there was something better at comparable price elsewhere?

Instead of "innovating," they might look at just making their foundation menu
tasty. Healthy ingredients that people want would be good too, but just start
with tasty. And not "tasty in the test kitchen in Chicago," but tasty that
survives by default in every McDonalds in existence.

~~~
a3n
Here's the taste test for any burger.

If it's tasty without putting anything on it, then it's worth eating. If you
hate it unless you put a bunch of vegetables and condiments on it, then it's
defective.

You may actually prefer your burger with all that stuff on it, and that's
fine. I'm just describing the minimal acceptable experience. If you _have to_
(as opposed to want to) hide the burger to make it edible, then it's
defective.

McDonalds burgers are defective.

~~~
joezydeco
Funny thing is, they weren't that way a long time ago.

I worked the grill back in the late 1980s when they had the old system of
hand-grilling the burgers and assembling the sandwiches right there as the
patties were pulled off.

A freshly-made plain double cheeseburger, right off the grill, was an
incredible thing. It was damned good.

I'll be the first to say that the whole Modular Holding Cabinet system they
changed to wrecked their products completely. But it also stopped waste, which
was a massive downside to that old system. I'm sure over the decade the
quality of the products has changed too, but knowing what went into a
McDonald's burger back then they never tried to cut corners with substandard
materials.

~~~
a3n
> Funny thing is, they weren't that way a long time ago.

> A freshly-made plain double cheeseburger, right off the grill, was an
> incredible thing. It was damned good.

You're right, they were great. Now they're a disappointment at best.

> I worked the grill back in the late 1980s ...

And I ate what you cooked in the late 80s. And the late 70s. And the late 60s.
Really great.

Harumph.

------
anthony_romeo
The truth is, there is very little McDonald's can do to reshape their image in
the short run. They've been racing to the bottom for years now, but their food
is not inexpensive enough to warrant ever going there. It might take a
generational shift for people to come back around (or another economic
collapse). Competitors are making far better products at a similar but
somewhat higher price point. If a competitor's burger is, say, twice or thrice
as good as McDonald's food at only 1.3 times the price, consumers' value per
dollar increases substantially when buying food at competitors. As the U.S.
economy improves and incomes increase, eating at McDonald's is an increasingly
inefficient way to increase one's satisfaction.

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smtddr
McDonald's had a huge impact on how beef is produced in America. If they start
demanding higher quality ingredients I can't help but think it'll raise the
minimum quality of food for the whole nation in general.

EDIT: I've removed my comments expressing my antiGMO beliefs because it's
already turning into a whole thread-debate-topic on its own. All I really
wanted to say here is that McD's has a huge influence on America's method of
producing food. If they demand higher quality, it'll raise the mininum quality
for the whole nation. I specifically think of things like beef & corn. That is
all. Think whatever you will of GMOs, that debate seems just as volatile as
debating Crossfit's health benefits. I hope that at least we can all agree
that McD's was/is making near minimal quality of food and them raising the bar
will raise the bar for all of USA.

~~~
Igglyboo
Can I ask you why you are anti-GMO? It seems like a lot of people on the
internet hate Monsanto and just lump GMOs in with them.

If we didn't have GMOs we would have far more starving people than we
currently do on this planet.

~~~
logfromblammo
There is good GMO and there is bad GMO.

Altering the organism to improve its nutritional profile, such as by growing
rice with vitamin A, that's good. I'm totally behind golden rice.

Altering the organism to resist herbicides or express pesticides that have
potential toxicity to humans is a matter for some concern. The alteration
itself may not even present a threat directly, but may enable an agricultural
practice that causes harm.

For instance, herbicide resistant crops may absorb the herbicide, the safety
of which was determined based primarily on inhalation and skin contact, and
become the vector for an unforeseen risk from ingestion. Some people have made
some provocative unproven claims that the symptoms of gluten sensitivity are
actually adequately explained by glyphosate poisoning, mainly from crops that
have been chemically dessicated prior to harvest. Obviously, glyphosate-
resistant crops would not be dessicated pre-harvest with glyphosate, but they
would have been sprayed with it during the growing season. I can't say for
certain whether that particular chemical would be retained or degraded in any
given plant. But I know that a tiny, tiny amount is present in much of what I
eat. Is it dangerous? I don't know. I don't even know how I would prove it if
it was. I always have the option to eat different foods, or differently
cultivated foods (i.e. organic), if I so choose.

But the primary reason I'm mostly against GMO is the brutish nonsense
surrounding _patented seeds_. The slow accumulation of possibly barely-toxic
chemicals in my gut is less of a concern to me than the lawyer that orders a
person to pay a license fee on each kernel of corn that he or she intends to
plant. _That guy_ is manipulating the entire market for food, changing the
whole business model for farming, and that scares the insoluble fiber out of
me.

The primary threat isn't in the _genes_ ; it's in the _laws_.

~~~
mrfusion
Nice write-up. I might reference it for future debates.

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chollida1
I don't think many people here realize just what a gargantuan feat it would be
for McDonalds to change their menu.

If they went organic grass feed beef one day they would need the entire 20
years of the entire US organic beef production to fill their first year needs.

When they roll out a new topping, like spinach, they have to build up reserves
for months ahead of time so they don't affect the market.

The down side of being McDonalds is that they are so mind boggling huge that
they can raise or lower the pirce of pretty much any vegtable by adding it to
their menu.

The upside of being McDonalds is that they are so mind boggling huge that they
can change the course of American farming by decreeing that they will only use
certain types of vegetables or vegetables only produced under certain
conditions.

Think about the intestinal fortitude you would need to change McDonalds menu
in any drastic way. McDonalds is 4 things:

1) One of the largest derivatives players that isn't doing it as their main
source of revenue, ie they aren't a hedge fund. You will directly affect the
commodities market.

2) One of hte largest property holders in the world, if your bet goes wrong
you'll screw up what is in effect one of the worlds largest REITS.

3) an employer of a mind boggling large number of people. Make the wrong move
and you just put a alrge portion of the lower wage community out of a job.

4) a company worth 94 billion by market cap. When you run a company that large
you don't get to make brash decisions without the boards approval.

So if you make the decision to improve the quality of food you serve, you'll
have a few side effects.

1) you'll shock the commodities markets, maybe this is good or bad, not sure.
But it will take you a minimum of 3 years I'm imagining before you can see
meaningful change as food contracts are usually long term.

2) you'll run a very real risk of pushing someone else out of the market as
there is only so much of each food substance produced. ie if McDonalds
announced they were only going to use a better quality of chicken and beef
then the first thing I'd do is short chipotle, and short them hard, as if a
supplier has the choice of upsetting McDonals or Chipotle, they will short
change Chipotle every single time.

3) you run the risk of alienating your bread and butter customer, lower income
people who are price sensitive to hamburger prices going from $1.50 to $3.

4) You are a dividend paying company, which means the market doesn't expect
growth in any area expect your dividend. Fail in this regard and you will be
punished heavily. If you fail in your better food quality push you may just
shave off 20 Billion in market cap.

TL/DR it takes alot of courage to change the MCDonalds menu!!

~~~
nness
The other thing I find interesting is that McDonalds is a common dietary
substitute for those with a low-income. If they were to increase quality
(nutritional content) or increase price, it could have a meaningful effect on
obesity.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
_McDonalds is a common dietary substitute for those with a low-income_

It is really hard for me to understand this line of reasoning. I lived in
Canada as a foreign student a few years ago and it was way cheaper to cook for
yourself than to eat at a McDonald. Maybe the situation is different in US,
but I doubt it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I lived in Canada as a foreign student a few years ago and it was way
> cheaper to cook for yourself than to eat at a McDonald. Maybe the situation
> is different in US, but I doubt it.

McDonald's isn't cheaper than cooking for yourself, but time constraints
(consider a single parent with multiple jobs) and/or the up-front costs when
bits of your cooking infrastructure is lost, broken, damaged may make the
_marginal_ cost of getting the next meal from McDonald's cheaper than the cost
of repair plus the next meal. Given that the poor may have limited access to
additional credit and litte-no reserves, that marginal cost difference may
make McDonald's the only affordable choice, even though the long-term cost is
higher.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
The time constraint I could understand. However, the _cooking infrastructure_
argument doesn't hold water two people eating at McDonalds once a day could
easily spend $600 monthly. You can buy some cheap, second hand, fridge and
stove easily with this amount.

~~~
greedo
Dollar Menu...

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Try to eat this for a month ...

~~~
greedo
Try being poor and eating for a month on whatever you have. You learn to be a
bit less discriminating.

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impostervt
No the first time they've promised this. But who goes to McDonald's for "good"
food?

~~~
kaoD
> But who goes to McDonald's for "good" food?

Nobody. But plenty of people don't go to McDonald's due to its bad food.

It's not even about the unhealthiness of it, but its low quality. McD's around
me have the shittiest meat ever cooked while their prices are still not very
competitive compared to good, tasty burgers in proper restaurants (around 8€
for a menu in both). McD's is losing to proper restaurants/bars (which aren't
really their competitors but actually compete against them) and to other fast
food places.

The only advantage McDonald's offers in my country is they're open 24h on
weekends so you can eat it after a night out, where the shitty taste is
obscured by the client's drunkness... and kebab places are slowly taking their
piece of the cake there too.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Plenty of people go there because its cheap and convenient, not because it is
particularly good, tasty, or well, healthy.

I prefer McDonalds when my only other obvious choice is a Chinese xiao chi
that might be using recycled gutter oil. The xiao chi will be tastier, but I
can't really afford to risk my life like that.

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bryanlarsen
They tried that already, and failed. The Angus burger wasn't a great burger,
but it was a better burger than anything else on their menu. It was
discontinued due to lack of sales.

~~~
nness
It's funny hearing about, what I assume to be, McDonald's in the US. There are
two Angus beef burgers is still available in Australia. Once they introduced
them, Hungry Jacks (Burger King) did the same.

It's actually pretty tasty... [https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/grand-
angus](https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/grand-angus)

------
bhousel
It's easy to hate on McDonald's, but this is a company that actually does a
fantastic job of responding to their critics. They have changed their
packaging, updated the design of their restaurants, eliminated trans-fats from
the fry oil, changed how they market to kids, added salads to the menu, posted
calorie counts and nutrition info, etc. Despite all the hate, they listen and
respond.

Even though I don't personally like their food, they are not a company that I
would bet against in the long run.

~~~
logfromblammo
Don't forget a unilateral decision to increase the wages of their lowest-paid
workers. Their business is much more than just their product line and supply
chain.

Their mission is not to serve the best meal, or the cheapest meal, or even the
best quality per unit price. They aim to provide a uniform, consistent
customer experience, at every point of sale, around the entire world. As a
result, their first priority is to _always protect the brand_.

As a result, the food itself is almost inconsequential. They could buy their
beef from anyone that can raise enough cattle to make it worth the corporate
buyer's salary. But on the other side, they are the only company that can sell
the "McDonald's Experience".

That's why you don't bet against McDonald's. They have removed the element of
uncertainty from eating at a new (to you) restaurant. If you go to any city in
the world that has a McDonald's, you can eat there with the psychological
assurance that the food there will be no worse than the McDonald's in your
very own home town. But it will also be no better. That's the tradeoff.

As a result, every other restaurant has to exceed McDonald's in some specific
niche of the market if they want customers. If McDonald's is starting to focus
on quality, every place that competes with them by having slightly better
ingredients had better take notice and respond.

~~~
joezydeco
_Don 't forget a unilateral decision to increase the wages of their lowest-
paid workers._

Ah, but that was just for the _corporate_ owned stores. Franchisees, which are
4/5 of the operations, make their own salary decisions.

------
darthsnapper
The reason most of you don't shop at MCD is because you're above the class
they sell to. They need to sell cheap food to those who are on a tight budget,
and cheap food unfortunately, is also the lowest quality and unhealthiest of
food (hence why it's cheap).

~~~
jqm
As others have pointed out though... they really aren't that cheap.

That's my complaint. I don't mind subpar food once in a great while. But I
went there for lunch a few weeks ago and it was over $8 and I felt nasty and
was hungry a couple of hours later. I could have gone to the grocery store
deli and gotten a hot lunch combo for $6. Or a tasty burrito from the local
Mexican place for $3.50 and an iced tea from the convenience store for $1.

In short, it's not just that their food isn't that great (it's not)... it's
that it's too expensive to be that bad.

~~~
Dylan16807
The dollar menu is cheap... everything else is just low-quality food at
unimpressive prices.

~~~
checker
Don't you mean the "Dollar Menu and More" (tm) menu? RIP original Dollar Menu.

The McD app has coupons that can get you some decent quantities for food for
pretty cheap, or at least it did when it first came out. I haven't used it in
a while so they might have cut back on some of the deals they were offering.

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josefresco
Consumed fast food this weekend (the specific chain shall remain nameless) and
while I was able to deal with the low food quality (just barely), the
cleanliness of the restaurant, and poor management (no management?) of the
staff made the experience much worse.

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tempodox
McDonald's sure as hell _would_ have incredible headroom for making quality
improvements, if that were what this is all about. But it isn't. MD just looks
stuffy compared to competitors.

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adam12
Just bring back the jalapeno burger and I'll be happy.

------
ksherlock
The French McDonald's (McDo) are quite nice. Maybe the supply chain won't
allow it, but establishing/converting a few McCafe's like that in trendy
locations would help their image among people like us (which will trickle down
to the plebs). Kind of like Blue Moon and Coors.... <p>
[http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-france-is-
better...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-france-is-better-than-
in-america-2015-4)

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LandoCalrissian
So the solution to their overpriced bloated menu, is to add more stuff to the
menu? Good luck with that.

------
tsieling
Quality isn't in their DNA. They can promise all they want, I'd never trust
them enough to put what they make in me.

------
paulsmith
You need to innovate more, eh? Three words: Soylent Shamrock Shakes.

------
onezeno
I'll stop my one-man boycott when they end the "love" campaign. It's quite
disturbing that they're trying to substitute a cheap hamburger for love. It's
a microcosm of what's wrong with this culture.

