Customer relevance is always top-of-mind
at McDonald’s and customer touchpoints on hot button issues for all chain
restaurants today according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®
Regular readers of this blog know that
our Grocerant Guru® continues to tout that one of the hallmarks of the grocerant
niche is the ‘halo’ of better-for-you.
Consumers are dynamic not static and McDonald’s
understands that as a key player within the grocerant niche everything that
they do to ‘get better’ add relevance for consumers.
So, McDonald’s is testing wooden spoons
and edible condiment cups replace less eco-friendly options at
"Better McDonald's" locations in Germany. McDonald's currently has more than 1,470 restaurants
scattered throughout Germany, but for 10 days in June, customers at its
location inside the Mall of Berlin had a completely different experience when
they ordered a Hamburger Royal Käse or a Schokolinsen-Saurer Apfel McFlurry. If
that taste as good as it sounded that would be enough for me but not McDonald’s.
So all of the test stores service burgers
in packaging made from grass and they could've eaten that McFlurry with a small
wooden spoon. From June 17 through June 26, the restaurant temporarily
reinvented itself as the Better McDonald's Store — and, from a sustainability perspective, that wasn't just a clever name
according to press reports.
So, the ‘Better McDonald's’ Store was
completely plastic-free, which allowed the company to test out some
alternatives to single-use plastics and to receive customer feedback on each of
those items. In addition to paper straws, wooden cutlery, and grass-paper
burger cartons, condiments and dipping sauces were served in edible waffle
cups, and Chicken McNuggets were handed out in paper bags instead of cardboard
cartons.
Diana Wicht, the Sustainability
Department Head for McDonald's Germany, said in a statement said "Normally, McDonald's goes out with
perfect solutions. This time we said, 'We don't have perfect solutions yet…
please help us!'"
On note, earlier this year, McDonald's
replaced the plastic straws in its U.K. locations with paper straws, and they
weren't exactly well-received: more than 53,000 people have signed a
petition asking McDonald's to bring back the plastic. (The campaign creator's
reason for his big ask? "So I can drink my milkshake proper.")
Reports from Germany as far as Berlin's
Better McDonald's went, the McTesters gave high marks to the grass-paper
packaging and to the fully edible sauce cups, but they weren't sold on wooden
cutlery, with almost half of those surveyed describing the taste of the spoon
as 'woody.' Cleary no pun intended.
Canadian versions of the Better
McDonald's Store are being tested in Ontario and British Columbia, and Food
& Wine has reached out to McDonald's to see if there are any plans
for a similar concept in the United States.
How are you testing disruption? What’s in your supply chain pipeline?
How many customer touchpoints would you have to change to drive incremental relevance?
Foodservice Solutions® specializes in
outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify
additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and
brand and menu integration strategy. Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche
visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant
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