Image: Shutterstock
Back in October, McDonald’s announced that they would be offering breakfast all day, and people around the world rejoiced. That’s because their breakfast offerings are some of the best selling items they have, and something that was hard to come by for a lot of people who didn’t have time to get there before 10:30 am or whatever arbitrary cutoff they had. It’s a lesson that Jack in the Box seems to have learned a long time ago.
And so far, McDonald’s has been rejoicing at the decision too. Their same store sales during the fourth quarter of 2015 were 5.7% higher than the previous year, the best figures in 15 quarters. CEO Steve Easterbrook, who has done a lot to try and turn the flagging fast-food giant around, seems to have struck on some good ideas.
All-day breakfast isn’t the only thing that’s changed recently at McDonald’s, and it’s not the only thing that’s helping. Easterbrook also improved the accuracy of drive-thru ordering, as evidenced by clearer, easier to read customer-facing displays in drive-thrus. He also slimmed down the menu, reducing the number of options rather significantly. That makes preparing food easier, since there aren’t so many things that need to be done in a given day, and also makes choosing things somewhat easier on customers. Chances are you’ve seen the clearer, more streamlined menus that make ordering that much simpler.
Perhaps most important, the chain has increased transparency about how they prepare their food, something that McDonald’s has never really been known for in the past. Jokes about the quality of the food, or what it’s “really made of” likely won’t go away, but people have better access to that information if they care. Easterbrook is also planning to move the company to cage-free eggs and antibiotic-free chicken.