McDonald’s Shrinks Menu, Gives Up On Healthier Foods To Drive Profit

McDonald’s trimmed nutritious foods from its menu, such as salads, grilled chicken sandwiches, and fruit and yogurt parfaits, a move to streamline operations and offer faster drive-thru times with less staff.

BTIG LLC analyst Peter Saleh told Bloomberg that healthier foods wouldn’t return to McDonald’s anytime soon, which should increase profitability amid soaring commodity and labor costs.

McDonald’s has lowered drive-thru wait times by 30 seconds since the pandemic because of the menu cut.

“With the shortage of labor, you’re trying to keep your menus as streamlined and as simple as possible,” Saleh said. “For many of these restaurants, their menus get bloated with some of these new items, and then you cut it off to help with speed.”

The new strategy of a “simplified menu enables speed,” said the National Owners Association, a large group of McDonald’s franchisees, told Bloomberg. The group said the key to sales growth in these challenging times of soaring costs and lack of labor is an efficient car lane: “We love fast drive-thrus, happy customers, and happy crews.” – READ MORE