- McDonald’s executives acknowledged during an earnings call Monday that diners consider the company’s prices too high, and said they are taking a “forensic approach” to evaluating prices.
- Amid a broader consumer pullback and increasing prices, fast-food chains have had a difficult time drawing in lower-income diners.
- The company’s recent $5 value meal offering was initially successful in bringing lower-income diners back to stores but has yet to translate into higher sales, company executives said.
I’ve been in restaurants for most of my adult life, and even our own pricing has gotten out of hand. I don’t like it, but that’s food costs. We can’t sell a protein dish for $10 if the protein is $7.50 at cost. I’m not getting McDonald’s back here, I’m sure their corporate greed is excessive, but it’s not just them dealing with higher priced food. We try to make as much as we can in house to avoid preservatives and chemical bullshit, as well as maintaining a lower cost, but even that is getting to be too much and finding skilled labor that can prep things that a lot of other restaurants buy outright is getting expensive, too. Luckily, the place I work at now is a brewery as well, and the beer sales can subsidize our food costs, but if we didn’t have that beer, we’d be fucking done.