When Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their “McDonald’s Bar-B-Q” in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1940, the carhop drive-in was more focused on hot dogs than hamburgers. Eight years later, they revamped their menu, streamlined the preparation process into an efficient assembly line and ushered in the age of the 15-cent hamburger.
Seventy-five years and billions of burgers later, the rest is history.
Today, the fast-food giant, transformed into a franchise operation by Ray Kroc in the 1950s, has more than 36,000 locations in 119 countries. But McDonald’s position in the changing fast-food market is less than stable. Growth has slumped in recent years with competition from other chains, and a food-safety scandal in Japan last year prompted a record fall in sales. New CEO Steve Easterbrook has promised to rebuild the chain as a “modern, progressive burger and breakfast restaurant.” Here are a few ways the company has tried to refresh its image over the past year.
The kale-Mary pass
Eager to shake off its junk-food image, McDonald’s – which first added salads to its menu 28 years ago today – is introducing three types of kale salad to Canadian consumers, in Caesar, Greek and harvest garden varieties.
Robble revisited
Introduced in the early 1970s, the Hamburglar was part of a roster of McDonald’s marketing characters in the fantasy world of McDonaldland. But earlier this year, the burger bandit got a perplexing makeover, with a scruffy beard and a costume more reminiscent of Kill Bill: Vol. 1’s Crazy 88 than the kid-friendly Hamburglar of yore.
All-day breakfast
McDonald’s made its first foray into breakfast fast food with the Egg McMuffin, which made its U.S. national debut in 1975. Forty years later, the chain is trying a new experiment: all-day breakfast, which started testing in the San Diego area last month. (The experiment isn’t coming to Canada yet, sadly.)
Antibiotic-free chicken
Renowned for its Chicken McNuggets since the 1980s, the company’s chicken cred took a hit last year when a Chinese supplier of the restaurant’s Japanese unit was found in breach of food-quality standards. This past March, McDonald’s announced a plan for its U.S. restaurants to phase out the use of meat from chickens raised with antibiotics that are important to human medicine.