How McDonald’s makes Europeans hooked on its fast food

At first glance, McDonald’s is probably the most American institution. It serves burgers and large portions of fried food – each of that are known for. Book details The fast-food giant’s influence amongst restaurant chains and within the fast-food take-away sector makes it a quintessentially American dish.

Given its place in U.S. culture, McDonald’s success in Europe could also be surprising. The secret to McDonald’s growth just isn’t its core products, like chicken nuggets or McFlurry, that you simply see in every single place. Rather, it’s the corporate’s locally produced foods, which make up a couple of third of the menu in each country, says Tim Kenward, the corporate’s CMO for international markets. Assets.

“The heritage is absolutely American,” he said. “In the USA [the dishes] “Most companies probably stay really close to the core when it comes to innovation, while in Europe they move away from the core a little bit – but respectfully.”

Europeans should not all the time easy to please. Every country has a wealthy gastronomic heritage, be it the way in which meat is ready or how the best bread is baked. The craze for McDonald’s didn’t come immediately in markets like France. But it was in some ways inevitable, as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola were heading for global dominance on account of people’s changing lifestyles, writes Giulia Crisanti, a postdoctoral fellow at Sapienza University in Rome, in “The Europeans prefer it?” her recently published book.

For Europeans, this meant abandoning anti-American stereotypes, changing traditional eating habits, and embracing the brand new foods brought with them by globalization.

“She [McDonald’s] were able to somehow mix European and American food cultures,” Crisanti said. “It’s not a threat because it doesn’t compete with Italian and French food traditions. It’s something we could enjoy – it’s American [and] It’s fashionable, especially among younger consumers.”

McDonald’s has now found its place available in the market. When a Frenchman or German bites right into a juicy McDonald’s burger in 2024, they’ll hardly think that it’s a cultural export product from the USA, since it has develop into integrated into the local eating regimen.

The approach has obviously worked. The company opened its first European location within the Netherlands in 1971. Half a century later, it has greater than 8,000 restaurants on the continent, reflecting its business growth. There is a separate fan base of people that prefer to try the McDonald’s menu in several countries out of curiosity. While McDonald’s doesn’t publish a breakdown of its sales by country, its international markets, including Europe, Australia and Canada, account for about half of the corporate’s total sales.

But even for a large like McDonald’s, staying relevant in an ever-evolving market of food trends is not any easy task. To keep its customers engaged, the corporate is always looking out for breadcrumbs that may result in the subsequent menu jackpot.

COURTESY OF McDONALD’S

Menu innovation

McDonald’s introduces a mean of 10 latest products in each European market annually – just the tip of the iceberg, says Kenward, in comparison with the flowery range of products it tests. This is how a few of its hottest dishes got here about, corresponding to the Italian Pistachio McFlurry, the Swiss McRaclette and the viral Dutch fries sausage.

Although the corporate is a force to be reckoned with within the fast-food space, it doesn’t look to the food industry for inspiration in the case of latest menus. Instead, “consumers are the architects of our menu,” he said.

“We taste, we sample, we sift through the world of different options and then find the perfect product,” Kenward added.

COURTESY OF McDONALD’S

The Chicago-based company understands what people need or are talking about online after extensively scouring the web to seek out out what’s trending available in the market.

Then it goes quickly. It works with chefs (occasionally top-classcorresponding to Michelin-starred chef Paul Cunningham) in its innovation centers in each market and tests ideas in several phases, including with customers. At the identical time, it thinks a couple of name that matches the dish and considers find out how to price and portion it. The fast-food giant could, for instance, consider how Generation Z would order the dish, as they prefer to snack throughout the day.

Kenward points out that McDonald’s doesn’t all the time follow a method of making latest dishes from scratch. Sometimes the corporate simply draws on past successes and recreates the nostalgia related to them.

The company makes the identical McCrispy burgers within the Netherlands, but adds a slice of old Amsterdam cheese to market them locally. This small change has resulted in thousands and thousands of burgers being sold, said Stijn Mentrop, chief marketing officer of McDonald’s Netherlands.

Another example is the breakfast wrap within the UK, which was discontinued a number of years ago, but then quite a few fans began talking about it on social media, which prompted McDonald’s to reintroduce the wrap and make it a everlasting a part of its UK menu.

“Bringing back some popular things can be just as exciting as bringing new things,” Kenward said. He also pointed to the highly anticipated Lumberjack burger in Poland, which returns to McDonald’s menus every winter with a brand new item to create excitement.

“It’s really starting to become part of their culture,” he said.

Reports have shown that the corporate modified the dietary values ​​and ingredients of a few of its branded products – some differences are more significant than others – within the UK in comparison with the US. This may very well be on account of adjusting taste buds and access to ingredients, including banned and infrequently used additives and preservatives. It definitely hasn’t stopped people flocking to McDonald’s once they have a craving for fast food.

Although McDonald’s studies its customers closely, there isn’t a clear formula for what might or may not achieve success. For example, the corporate introduced McPizzas for quick and simple take-out pizza. within the EightiesBut the strategy didn’t really go down well with customers in Italy. On the opposite hand, panzerotti, which resemble a small calzone, are a staple on the Italian menu.

Mike Kemp – In Pictures/Getty Images

While McDonald’s has used its food sector to realize a foothold in Europe, Crisanti said the corporate’s business model of franchises and native supply chains has helped it higher integrate into the region, citing France for instance.

“There was a need to present the McDonald’s menu as something local, something French, because we rely on French suppliers, we employ French workers and we give opportunities to French businessmen thanks to our franchise structure,” she said.

In each European market, McDonald’s is a special a part of the fast food scene. This is determined by the competition and the way well the corporate has integrated into the local landscape. In countries like France, where eating at McDonald’s is a family outing, the tables are intentionally round to make sitting more comfortable. France can be the European country with probably the most McDonald’s outlets, despite the country being known for its haute cuisine.

Making the TikTok trend a McDonald’s moment

What does McDonald’s success in Europe seem like as a tireless machine for brand new food creations?

The key lies within the glue that holds McDonald’s efforts together: its cheeky social media presence. McDonald’s France’s Instagram handle recently caught the general public’s attention when a post that was joked about The classic curry sauce was faraway from the menu after basketball player Stephen Curry helped the US team win against France on the Olympic Games in Paris.

Every time the corporate introduces a brand new menu, TikToks from McDonald’s fans flood the web, garnering thousands and thousands of views in a matter of days. But that “conversational ability,” as Mentrop calls it, is strictly what the corporate wants.

@gw.alkerr McDonald’s in Croatia has a brand new pistachio McFlurry😍 #walker95 #Pistachio #mcflurry #MCDonalds #Eat #mukbang #fyp #viral ♬ Original sound – gw.alker

“Sometimes things are so popular that they break the internet. That’s what we say, and we actually want that to happen once or twice a year,” he said. “When we innovate locally around the product, we need to make sure it has a big impact, because that takes a lot of time.”

People share memories with McDonald’s, creating a powerful customer base that willingly participates in the corporate’s digital experiments. The Monopoly game – mimicking the unique Board game and offers rewards once you collect certain stickers – is a technique people use the McDonald’s app.

With the continued cost of living crisis, app-based loyalty programs have given people a reason to spend their money in a way that might reward them later in the shape of free desserts or a bag of chips.

Certainly, the corporate’s profits have taken successful in recent months for quite a lot of reasons, including boycotts related to the war in Gaza, which led to Sales within the second quarter France was among the many markets that saw a drop in demand amongst families. The company is considering launching a €4 Happy Meal to lure its customers back.

In some ways, McDonald’s has develop into native across Europe. Almost 90 percent of Dutch people visit the restaurant chain within the Netherlands a minimum of annually, says Mentrop. This shows how much Europeans value the brand and its efforts to localize flagship fast food.

“We have really taken over these global icons, built our business [around it]but where it matters most, local flavor has been added,” he said.