McDonald’s hopes 2025 will be “another challenging year” For the fast food chain that has seen Consumers affected by inflation cut back on discretionary spending.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski told a business gathering in Boston on Thursday that the Big Mac maker Brace yourself for more turmoil ahead.
“We’re starting to talk about 2025, and my message to our teams is: ‘We need to prepare for another challenging year,'” Kempczinski said in remarks at Boston College’s Chief Executive Club event. .
“We need to make sure we have a really strong value proposition in all our markets.”
Kempczinski’s comments were Reported by Bloomberg News.
McDonald’s disclosed its first quarterly same-store sales decline in four years last July.
The company’s stock has seen its stock tumble this year as it struggles to win back customers upset by skyrocketing prices.
In July, McDonald’s shares were down more than 17% from January 1.
However, the stock has since recovered – rallying 25% since the end of July.
McDonald’s shares were up 2% on Friday.
As of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, it was trading at a little more than $304 a share.
In recent years, inflation has raised the prices of McDonald’s menu items.
At some places, A Big Mac meal can cost up to $18.
To win back consumers, McDonald’s introduced a special $5 value meal that includes a McDouble burger or McChicken sandwich, small fries, a four-piece Chicken McNuggets, and a small drink.
Last month, the company announced it would extend Value Dining to most of its U.S. restaurants through December, which was originally only offered for a limited time.
This is the second time McDonald’s has extended the deal.
Low priced food was cited as the reason why a Major French Fries SupplierLamb Weston cut jobs last week and abruptly closed a factory.
Kempczinski said Thursday that McDonald’s will aim to offer more affordable meals by adding chicken-based items to the menu because poultry costs more than half that of beef on a per-pound basis.
“It’s easier to provide value on chicken products than beef products,” Kempczinski said.
Last week, McDonald’s filed a lawsuit against the meat industry’s “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Co. — and their subsidiaries.
McDonald’s alleged in the lawsuit that the companies were colluding with each other to artificially inflate the price of beef.
This collusion caused the beef market “to become a monopoly in which direct buyers were forced to buy at prices set by (the meat packers),” McDonald’s lawsuit reads — later noting that one of those buyers The injury he has suffered in the form is “what antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”
McDonald’s alleges that the meat packers’ conspiracy dates back nearly a decade, dating back to at least January 2015, and continues today.
Its lawsuit argues that these companies’ actions violate the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust law.
with post wire