McDonald’s new idea: fresh beef
McDonald’s Quarter Pounders will be made of fresh beef starting in the middle of next year.
The company announced Thursday morning that the majority of its restaurants in the United States will make the change from frozen beef.
“We don’t anticipate any significant increase in price,” spokeswoman Becca Hary said. “Individual franchisees set their own price.”
Fresh beef was tested in 325 restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and 77 restaurants in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Quarter Pounder burgers include the Quarter Pounder, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe and Signature Crafted Recipe burgers.
Other burger lines, such as the Big Mac and McDouble, aren’t affected.
Restaurants in Alaska and Hawaii aren’t making the switch because of the distance and the logistics involved in shipping there, Hary said.
“Over the last two years, we have accelerated the pace of change around how we source and serve our food,” McDonald’s USA President Chris Kempczinski said in a written statement. “Delivering fresh beef that’s prepared when our customers order their food is just another example of how we are raising the bar.”
The world’s largest hamburger chain for some time has been attempting to improve its image as more people shun processed foods. It has tinkered with recipes, removed artificial preservatives from Chicken McNuggets and removed high fructose corn syrup from its buns.
Earlier this month, McDonald’s said it lost 500 million customer transactions in the U.S. since 2012, mainly to other fast-food chains.
Contributing: Associated Press