McDonald’s May Be Preparing Its Biggest Chicken Upgrade In Years
The McDonald’s Worldwide Convention is the place to be for anyone involved with the McDonald’s ecosystem. From owner-operators and crew members to suppliers and delivery partners, every level of Ronald McDonald’s supply chain is represented at this biennial global event.
Previous years have been held in cities like Orlando, Barcelona, and Toronto. This year’s event is in Las Vegas—a fitting locale, since the brand just announced a major gamble.
On the first day of this year’s McDonald’s Worldwide Convention, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski stated the company’s intent to move toward hand-breading chicken products at U.S. restaurants. Considering chicken sales are growing twice as fast as beef sales amid a slew of chicken-focused competitors, this shift towards white meat makes sense from a business perspective.
The executive didn’t give any specific timelines on when we’ll all be able to order bone-in wings at our local Macca’s. That said, consumers in one specific city actually got their hands on this new elevated chicken option a few months ago.
Four McDonald’s locations in Chicago tested hand-breaded chicken items earlier this year. Those stateside tests included McSpicy Wings and McCrispy Tenders (alongside a grilled chicken sandwich—a quiet benefit of hand-breading chicken is being able to serve it sans breading as needed).
While McDonald’s is already offering chicken tenders at restaurants nationwide, chicken wings have been a hit-or-miss offering at the Golden Arches for decades. “Mighty Wings” were on the McDonald’s menu from 1990 through 2003; after their discontinuation, follow-up releases were sporadic at best. It took 10 years for Mighty Wings to return to stores nationwide, and they haven’t been seen since—aside from a brief 2016 release exclusive to Atlanta-area restaurants.
Select branches of McDonald’s Global have already seen success after switching to hand-breaded chicken offerings. According to a franchisee who attended the presentation in Las Vegas, McDonald’s restaurants in China have overtaken KFC’s Chinese restaurants in chicken sales since switching to hand-breaded chicken over a year ago.
Lots of the chatter around this new development comes down to generalization versus specification. Restaurants like Raising Cane’s and Dave’s Hot Chicken sell a comparatively small slate of popular menu items, meaning innovation can focus on those headliners. McDonald’s has a much wider menu, so it’s harder to make changes to any particular slice of the pie.
No matter what you order, McDonald’s wants to be the most well-oiled machine possible. From delivery to storage to preparation and beyond, any adjustment to the existing processes has ripple effects across the entire restaurant.
Will McDonald’s switching to this elevated chicken carve some of their chicken sales back from their specialized competitors? The CEO of McDonald’s is no stranger to public gaffes in recent memory. If he’s willing to put the idea of hand-breaded chicken in U.S. restaurants on record, there must be some convincing research behind it.
