McDonald's to Switch to Fresh Beef in Quarter Pounders -- Update
31 March 2017 - 2:27AM
Dow Jones News
By Julie Jargon
McDonald's Corp. will switch to fresh beef from frozen in its
Quarter Pounder burgers at the majority of its restaurants
nationwide by mid-2018 in one of the biggest moves the company has
made to turn around its struggling U.S. business.
The chain is facing stiffer competition from traditional fast
food rivals such as Wendy's Co., which has been touting its use of
fresh beef patties in ads for many months. McDonald's has been
using frozen beef since the 1970s.
The burger giant is also trying to regain customers who have
been flocking to fast casual restaurants like Smashburger Master
LLC and Habit Restaurants Inc., which serve bigger burgers made
with fresh beef and gourmet toppings.
McDonald's recently said it would try to retain its core
customers by improving the quality and affordability of its
food.
McDonald's, which has ranked at or near the bottom of numerous
surveys about burger quality, last year convened a panel of
"sensory" experts including chefs and suppliers to study every
hamburger on the market and rate them against McDonald's core
burgers on such attributes as tenderness and juiciness. The company
has been experimenting with different grinds of beef, buns,
toppings, cook times and temperatures with the goal of delivering a
burger that comes out hotter and tastes fresher.
The company has always used 100% beef with no fillers, additives
or preservatives, but the patties were flash-frozen. Now the formed
patties will be shipped fresh to restaurants, where workers will
add salt and pepper to the burgers before searing them on the
grill.
McDonald's began testing Quarter Pounders made with fresh beef
in Dallas last year and later expanded it to a larger area of North
Texas and to Tulsa, Okla., after a Dallas franchisee pushed the
company to try it.
The burgers are cooked as soon as they are ordered so they come
out hot and fresh. McDonald's typically makes its burgers in
advance and holds them in warming cabinets so they are ready when
customers order them.
During the test, McDonald's didn't change the price of the
Quarter Pounders. Franchisees can choose whether to raise the price
of the burgers once the fresh beef patties are rolled out
nationwide.
The vast majority of McDonald's U.S. restaurants will serve
Quarter Pounders with fresh beef, but McDonald's in Hawaii and
Alaska won't because of the difficulty of shipping fresh beef that
far. Some locations in airports won't have fresh beef either due to
space constraints in the kitchen, which have to be outfitted with
extra refrigerators.
McDonald's USA President Chris Kempczinski said the company has
put in place rigorous food safety protocols to ensure the beef is
properly stored and handled from the processing plant to the
restaurants. A third-party auditor will perform food-safety audits
at the restaurants.
Mr. Kempczinski said the company hasn't determined whether to
extend fresh beef to the chain's Big Macs and other burgers. "We
will continue to make moves on the burger line. Whether it's this
move exactly I'm not sure but you should expect we'll continue to
elevate and meet customer expectations about what we can do with
our burgers," he said.
The chain has been taking other steps to win back customers
since Steve Easterbrook became CEO two years ago. The company began
serving breakfast all day in response to customer demand, removed
artificial preservatives from several menu items including chicken
nuggets and switched to chicken not treated with antibiotics
important to human medicine.
The company is also testing delivery, rolling out mobile
ordering and payment and offering table service in some restaurants
as part of its efforts to modernize customers' experience.
Write to Julie Jargon at julie.jargon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 30, 2017 11:12 ET (15:12 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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