One thing that is real: craving McDonald’s. One thing that is not real: craving a McDonald’s salad. Customers know this. McDonald’s knows this too and should not forget it.
The fast-food chain’s forays into healthier alternatives have been shaky. At the Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum in June, Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s U.S., detailed the company’s missteps in meatless burgers and salads. The McPlant burger failed in tests in San Francisco and Dallas, he said, and won’t appear on U.S. menus anytime soon. (Vegan options are doing better for the brand in Europe.) As for salads, McDonald’s may be forced to serve them widely at some point after ditching them in 2020 during the pandemic, but only if consumers show up to eat them, which they haven’t in the past. “What our experience has shown is that’s not what the consumer is looking for,” Erlinger said.
You go to McDonald’s for a quick, cheap snack, not a healthy, more expensive meal.
To state the obvious: obviously. McDonald’s the totality is that it’s not a sign of good health. People come for an affordable, decent burger with (hopefully) affordable, decent fries. No one walks up to the Golden Arches excited that they’re about to make a super awesome choice for their body.
“People go to McDonald’s for a quick, cheap snack, not a healthy, more expensive meal,” said Darren Tristano, CEO and founder of Foodservice Results, a food industry consultancy. A higher-quality alternative can be added to the menu so that if people are going out to eat in a group, there’s an option for a health-conscious person, which avoids their veto, he added. “But at the end of the day, you’re not going to see a group of kids going in and buying four plant-based burgers.”
McDonald’s is typically adept at taking an established trend and bringing it to the masses, said Danilo Gargiulo, a senior research analyst at AB Bernstein. But it’s not exactly a pioneer or innovator. Considering how plant-based meat has failed to take off in the U.S., it makes sense that it’s also a failure at McDonald’s. Beyond Meat, which partnered with McDonald’s on the McPlant, unveiled a turnaround plan earlier this year to try to revive its brand, including cutting at least $70 million in costs. Rival Impossible Foods has carried out several rounds of layoffs over the past two years.
The problem with salads isn’t that they aren’t popular in the US, it’s that there are plenty of places to buy them besides McDonald’s. There’s no good reason to buy your milk from the same place that makes the Grimace Shake when you can go to Sweetgreen, Cava, or Panera. You can also just make something from ingredients you bought at the grocery store, saving your McDonald’s trip for when you’re craving a treat.
Consumers give restaurants a kind of license to offer certain products. At McDonald’s, customers are willing to settle for breakfast sandwiches and Big Macs, but not a mediocre salad.
“They’re only going to give you credit for things they think you can produce,” Tristano said. “You’re not going to see eggs Benedict at McDonald’s.”
Over the years, McDonald’s has managed to include non-essential items, including coffee and chicken, in its lineup. But it makes sense. Coffee, including specialty coffee, is already popular. McDonald’s has been offering drip coffee for decades, but it didn’t open its first McCafé until 1993, in Australia. The first McCafé in the United States opened in Chicago in 2001.
McDonald’s developed chicken nuggets in the 1970s and added them to its menu in 1983. The McChicken sandwich was added to the menu in 1980, then removed due to poor performance, before returning it after the nuggets’ success. Today, McDonald’s sells as much chicken as beef, if not more, generating $25 billion in chicken sales annually. Yet it’s the crispy chicken and nuggets that are proving phenomenally popular, not the leaner grilled chicken, which the company also removed from menus in the U.S. during the pandemic.
It’s not just consumer demand that’s forcing McDonald’s to limit its menu to more traditional, less healthy options. It’s also forcing its franchisees to do the same. The company doesn’t want to have to offer food it has a hard time selling, much less invest in making. Limiting the menu allows it to serve more quickly and cut costs.
Nobody goes to the Apple Store looking for a charm bracelet. And nobody goes to McDonald’s looking for vegetables.
In the fast-food landscape, McDonald’s is unique and not. Tristano said Wendy’s, for example, hasn’t had much success expanding its menu beyond chili, which it can create from its leftover meat, though it does offer salads. Gargiulo said Burger King has done a little better on some fronts because in its DNA, it emphasizes a little higher quality. Its Impossible Whopper remains available in the U.S., though some of its other vegan options, like the Impossible Croissan’wich, have been removed from the menu.
“Part of where McDonald’s excels is in its ability to make things more operationally efficient. And even if you look at the kitchen, the equipment and the way it’s laid out, the way employees optimize the space and the time they spend using all of that, it looks like a Toyota production system,” Gargiulo said. “Burger King has always been a little more irreverent. It’s a little bit more of the little brother trying to be better than McDonald’s.”
Consumers have certain expectations of McDonald’s, just like they do of any brand. They want McDonald’s to be cheap, to taste good, and to feel like they’re getting value for their money. But if they’re worried about their waistline, McDonald’s is clearly not the place to go. No one goes to J.Crew to buy a new car. No one goes to an Apple Store to buy a charm bracelet. And no one goes to McDonald’s to buy vegetables.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where he writes about business and economics.