After months of testing and teasing dozens of modifications to its original burger, McDonald’s is now revealing one massive change that customers will notice — the size.
In a Tuesday call with analysts, McDonald’s Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden announced that the chain will be testing a larger burger this year in select markets.
“As we look to further build on our leadership in beef, our team of chefs from around the world have created a larger satiating burger,” Borden said during the call. “We’ll be testing this burger in a few markets later this year ensuring that it has universal appeal before scaling it across the globe.”
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This isn’t surprising news for McDonald’s, as Borden hinted at the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference last month that he believed there was a “significant” opportunity to create a larger-sized offering and noted the chain has attempted to do so in the past.
In the mid-90s, McDonald’s attempted to create “premium” burgers with different toppings and offerings (such as the Arch Deluxe, for example), instead of simply making a larger patty.
“We tried to get after this opportunity for a number of years because we thought the opportunity was about premium burger,” Borden said last month. “We weren’t successful.”
It’s been a long time coming for the chain, which laid out a massive growth plan in December that included creating a new version of its burgers with an estimated 50 modifications. The changes were first tested in Australia and select West Coast and Midwest markets in 2023.
Other changes included swapping the Big Mac’s sesame seed bun with “buttery brioche” and each burger coming with more of the cult-favorite “special sauce.”
McDonald’s reported positive Q1 2024 earnings on Tuesday, a 2% quarterly jump in global comparable sales growth, which marks the chain’s 13th consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth.
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“As consumers are more discriminating with every dollar that they spend, we will continue to earn their visits by delivering leading, reliable, everyday value and outstanding execution in our restaurants,” said CEO Chris Kempczinski.
McDonald’s was down just over 8% as of Tuesday afternoon.
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