McDonald’s announced that they will be removing the cheeseburger and chocolate milks from its Happy Meal lineup in a conscience effort to get healthier in their meal offerings. Not to worry however, because just in case your child loved the cheeseburger and chocolate milk, you can still order them on the regular menu, but will have to separately order the Happy Meal for the toy that your child was looking forward to as you drove into the parking lot. The chicken mcnuggets and hamburger options will still be on the Happy Meal menu for your child’s meals, and the removal of the cheeseburger makes the menu less daunting to choose from.
As reported in their press release on this subject, this initiative will be rolled out by 2022 across “20 markets to offer more balanced meals, simplify ingredients, continue to be transparent with Happy Meal nutrition information, reinforce responsible marketing to children, and leverage innovative marketing to help impact the purchase of foods and beverages that contain recommended food groups in Happy Meals.”
This move is a continuation of the effort to clean up it’s unhealthy image, to compete with the likes of In and Out Burger, (who uses fresh ingredients daily) and the Shake Shack. McDonald’s partnered with the not-for-profitAlliance for a Healthier Generation in 2013 to help them rollout a worldwide plan for a healthier future for McDonald’s customers. For example, in 2015, McDonald’s and the Healthier Generation “announced a global commitment to increase customers’ access to fruit and vegetables and help families and children make informed choices in keeping with balanced lifestyles”.
McDonald’s and the Healthier Generation have 5 specific high level goals for their Global Happy Meal Roll-Out:
- OfferBalanced Meals – An effort to make the nutrition criteria of less than or equal to 600 calories.
- Simplify Ingredients – Reduce the need for artificial flavors and colors in the food.
- Be Transparent with Happy Meal Nutrition InformationMarket Responsibly – In regards to Kid’s meals, an effort to advertise responsibly.
- Leverage Innovative marketing to help increase purchase of foods and beverages that contain recommended food groups in Happy Meals – This goal is to promote more healthy living for the fruit, vegetables, and lean protein offerings.
Another noble initiative as part of this global plan is the reduce the fries to a “kid-sized” fries, to reduce calorie and sodium amounts. Also, the chocolate milk(which you have to order separately), will be re-forumulated to reduce the amount of sugar. The planned meal updates will see an average reductions of 20 percent in calories, 50 percent in added sugars, and 13 percent in saturated fats, depending ultimately on the customer’s specific meal selection.
Bottom Line
As a casual observer, I applaud McDonald’s effort make the world a healthier place to eat, especially in the context of children. However, as a parent of a picky eater who likes McDonald’s, I would be upset that my costs would go up having to order the chocolate milk and cheeseburger separate from the coveted Happy Meal toy(Luckily, my son loves the chicken mcnuggets). As a shareholder, I would have concerns on the cost of going healthy for low margin meals such as the Happy Meal. Will the healthier initiatives increase customer foot traffic to make up for the costs of going healthier in the food?
Traverse City Dividend 