Under pressure to provide healthier meals, McDonald’s announced last week that it would no longer market some of its less nutritional options to children and said it also planned to include offerings of fruits and vegetables in many of its adult menu combinations.
It plans to make the changes to its menu in 20 of the company’s largest markets, which account for more than 85 percent of its overall sales, including overseas. But it will take three years or more to put them into place in about half the restaurants in those markets, and the remainder may not have the changes until 2020.
The offerings, which were announced in conjunction with the Clinton Foundation’s campaigns to reduce childhood obesity, are part of McDonald’s efforts to compete for health-conscious customers by featuring food choices that are lower in fat, salt or sugar content than its more traditional burger-and-fries options.
Although it has added salads, fruits and cut raw vegetables to its menu in recent years, the chain has experienced flat sales across much of its business in the United States and Europe, and forecast this summer that little would alter the company’s financial picture anytime soon. The millennial generation, a key demographic that is being wooed by fast-casual restaurants such as Panera Bread and Chipotle, in particular, has not become a loyal patron of McDonald’s.
As part of the new menu changes, the company said it would use its arsenal of marketing tools, from menu boards to national television advertising campaigns, to help customers understand the nutritional choices available.
McDonald’s new campaign was featured at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. Former President Bill Clinton said that similar agreements with the big soda companies to curb the sales of sugary drinks in schools were aimed at reducing the amount of sugar children consume.
“If we want to curb the catastrophic economic and health implications of obesity across the world, we need more companies to follow McDonald’s lead and step up to the plate and make meaningful changes,” Clinton said in a news release.
This latest move by McDonald’s, which it estimated would cost about $35 million, is one in a series of steps it has taken toward changing its menu to suit contemporary tastes and to try to address health concerns raised for years by nutritionists and other critics about the fat and caloric content of its food.
