Hungry for some cheap eats?

McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner says 40 percent of the burger giant’s “value burger” sales are now coming from its new McDouble — a burger with two patties and one slice of cheese.
    
That burger replaced the popular Double Cheeseburger on McDonald’s Dollar Menu on Dec. 1, when McDonald’s raised the price on the Double Cheeseburger — which has two patties and two slices of cheese — to $1.19.
    
Nevertheless, Skinner said the Double Cheeseburger still reigns with 60 percent of McDonald’s value burger sales.
    
Have you made the switch? 

(Photo\Reuters)

Check out those popular fast-food chains.

The recession might force consumers to skip meals at pricey restaurants, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting chains like McDonald’s.

Global sales at McDonald’s restaurants open 13 months or more jumped 7.7 percent in November.  Same-store sales rose 4.5 percent in the United States, where bargain hunters enjoy the Dollar Menu.  In November 2007, U.S. same-store sales rose 4.4 percent.

Of course, not everything can be bought for a buck.  McDonald’s recently raised the price of the Double Cheeseburger to $1.19 and brought out a $1 sandwich called the McDouble with one less slice of cheese.

Meanwhile, Wendy’s/Arby’s got a boost from major shareholder Trian Partners.  After a strong response to its tender offer, Trian is poised to hold a 21.6 percent stake in the restaurant company, up from 11.1 percent.

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(Reuters photo)

McDonald’s and credit card company Visa are extending a hand to employees to help them figure out their personal finances in a deepening recession. The two have launched a free online money management course for workers at the hamburger chain’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

“Now more than ever, it is crucial that people have the financial tools they need to spend responsibly and this collaborative effort is a critical part of addressing America’s financial illiteracy epidemic,” the companies said in a statement.

The online program, called Practical Money Skills for Life, is available in English and Spanish. In addition to access to the web site, employees will receive a printed “Wealth Watchers” budgeting guide.

We imagine there are plenty of Americans who could have used this kind of help 13 months ago.

Do you work at McDonald’s? Would you use this service? Let us know.

(Photo/Reuters)

McDonald’s is banking on diners lovin’ its new global packaging that will emphasize the hamburger chain’s products and food over the lifestyle of its customers.

The new wrappers, boxes and other containers will now carry photographs and graphics of food and ingredients, as well as playful stories and information about the products. The new packaging is meant to build brand loyalty with the 56 million customers served daily, even as McDonald’s has seen an increase in demand for its low-priced menu items amid the weak U.S. economy.

Mary Dillon, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer declined to say how much the initiative costs, but said the project was the biggest in the company’s history and that it spent a little more than normal on the effort.

“We are putting the focus on our food,” she said at a media event in Chicago. “This new packaging will actually help us reintroduce our iconic products to our customers and showcase new food.”

The new packaging, which will be adapted for most countries and include nutritional information, will roll out across all 118 countries in which McDonald’s operates over the next two years, starting in November in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland. Dillon said it will not necessarily boost sales, but is meant to build stronger ties with consumers.

The packaging was developed by Boxer, a unit of UK-based Marketing Store Worldwide that also developed the current packaging.

McDonald’s also announced the latest movie tie-in for its child-focused Happy Meal program. The partnership with DreamWorks movie “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” begins when Nov. 7 and rolls out globally through March 2009.

(Photo: McDonald’s)

Despite the wide range of organic and other “green” coffee on the market, 67 percent of coffee drinkers who frequent coffee shops admit to discarding used paper cups into a regular trash can rather than a recycling bin, according to a new survey of 1007 Internet users conducted by Kelton Research and commissioned by Tata Group’s Good Earth Coffee.
That means about 28 billion cups (100 million pounds of paper) end up in U.S. landfills every year.

The study also showed that 42 percent of Americans believe it takes less time for a paper coffee cup to decompose (20 years) than a newspaper (2 weeks). Not to mention the fact that many paper coffee cups can’t be recycled or composted because of the materials with which they are coated.

More than 30 percent of survey respondents said they were willing to pay extra for organic coffee or coffee that came in an eco-friendly container.

Meanwhile, the weak U.S. economy appears to be making a dent when it comes to improving the environment. That’s because the biggest consumer trend in coffee is brewing your own at home — maybe saving some green will also help save the planet.

(Photo: Reuters) 

McDonald’s, fancy coffee’s new kid on the block, appears to be stealing a page from the U.S. Presidential campaigns with an advertising blitz targeting the alleged coffee snobbery promoted by its upscale rival from Seattle.

McDonald’s restaurants in western Washington State — Starbucks’ home turf — have taken to the Internet with Unsobbycoffee.com, a site that provides a menu of McDonald’s new McCafe coffee drinks as well as tips for how to intervene when someone you love is addicted to “snobby iced espresso.”

And the pitches don’t end there. McDonald’s is planning a comprehensive media blitz — think radio, buses and billboards — for McCafe, which will be rolled out to the majority of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants by the middle of next year.

This ad is running with the McCafe launch in San Diego County. As the roll-out continues, there is certainly a similar promotion coming to a TV near you.

Stay tuned.

(Photo and Video: McDonald’s)

Check out the strong sales at McDonald’s in the … United States?
 
The world’s biggest restaurant chain posted its largest monthly U.S. same-store sales gain since February, when Leap year added an extra selling day. Barring the Leap year, July was the best month in 11 months.
 
It seems like only a few months ago people were worried that cash-strapped U.S. consumers would start shunning restaurants altogether, even the less expensive ones like McDonald’s.
 
In fact, it was. The company posted a drop in U.S. same-store sales in March, the first such decline in five years.
 
But the U.S. rebounded and strength in U.S. sales in July is a sign that the company is benefiting as consumers trade down from casual-dining restaurants like Red Lobster and Applebee’s, and that the value message of McDonald’s is attracting customers, analysts said.
  
Growth in high-margin items like drinks could also help the company offset rising hamburger commodity prices, UBS restaurant analyst David Palmer said in a research note.
 
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(Photo: Reuters)

Check out the demise of the dollar menu as we know it?
 
McDonald’s, dealing with rising commodity costs in the U.S., said it is looking at changes to its popular Dollar Menu, which accounts for about 14 percent of U.S. sales.
 
“What fits on that menu will look different than now because it has to be profitable,” said McDonald’s Chief Operating Officer Ralph Alvarez on a conference call with analysts.
 
“We’ve got to make sure we’re pricing smart, not just pricing low. We’ll make the move at some point,” Alvarez said.
 
The comments from Alvarez come two months after Chief Executive Jim Skinnner said the company was willing to absorb some rising costs in order to ensure customer loyalty.
 
“This is not the time to be passing that on to consumers. They have long memories,” Skinner said.
 
One analyst said the popular double-cheeseburger could disappear from the Dollar Menu.
 
But pegging an offering, or even a business, to the dollar can prove to be a dicey proposal. The dollar has weakened and costs have gone up. Most “dollar” stores, for example, stopped capping prices at one dollar years ago.
 
But analysts do not see McDonald’s straying too far from the dollar.
 
“We do not expect McDonald’s to abandon the dollar price point, but rather evolve the menu with either new products at a near-dollar price point or adjust the pricing of select products that have seen significant cost pressures,” Goldman Sachs analyst Steven Kron said in a research note.
 
Perhaps calling it the “Mighty close (to a) Dollar Menu” would solve the problem. To long? Well, that could always be shortened to “McDollar Menu.”
 
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(Photo: Reuters)

Check out McDonald’s Corp’s long-awaited switch to trans fat-free cooking oil in the United States and Canada.

Jim Skinner, CEO at the Golden Arches, said the world’s largest hamburger chain finished dumping the oil with artery-clogging trans fats during the last few months. Speaking to investors at the company’s annual meeting, he also promised that pies and other baked goods would also be trans fat-free by year end. 

McDonald’s was among the first fast-food purveyor to vow to stop using trans fats, but it lagged the competition when it came to putting its money where its mouth is.

The company had its reasons. It said it was insuring a consistent taste for its french fries and looking for a supplier that could deliver enough trans fat-free oil to meet its needs.

Meanwhile, No. 3 hamburger chain Wendy’s was the first fast-food seller to swap to trans fat-free cooking oil in 2006. Yum Brands Inc’s U.S. KFC and Taco Bell chains completed their switch last year.

Burger King, the No. 2 hamburger chain, has promised to dump trans fat-containing frying oil by the end of this year. Until that happens, you can check out its nutritional charts to see how much trans fat it is serving up with your Whopper and fries.

For all the fuss made over the trans fat issue, you would have expected attendees of McDonald’s annual meeting to let up a cheer. Not so. Individual investors lodged new demands and divided into two camps: doggie happy meals vs.  kitty happy meals.
 

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First it was too bitter, now it’s too mild.

Will Starbucks ever get it just right with the coffee testers at Consumer Reports?

In March 2007, the magazine blasted Starbucks’ drip java for being too burnt and bitter, and said fast-food vendor McDonald’s had a superior brew.

In April this year, Starbucks rolled out Pike Place Roast, its new everyday brew, saying it had a “smooth, welcoming taste.”

In its latest missive, Consumer Reports  took a decidedly more tepid stance on Starbucks’ new joe. 

The magazine’s testers found Pike Place to be “a smooth cup of coffee with some bitterness, but not particularly complex.” Because the flavor is so mild, the tasters said,  adding cream, milk or sweeteners might overwhelm the coffee.

Do you agree with the Consumer Reports’ testers?

(Photo: Reuters)