
McDonald's Expanding All-Day Breakfast Menu to Fatten Sales
More popular breakfast items available items all day, more sales.
At least that's the recipe McDonald's (MCD) - Get Report has now chosen to employ. The Golden Arches said Wednesday it will launch one all-day breakfast menu in September at all of its over 16,000 U.S. restaurants. It will add new items to the all-day breakfast menu such as biscuit sandwiches and McGriddles.
As TheStreet reported in March, McDonald's began testing an expanded all-day breakfast menu at 72 restaurants in the greater Tulsa, Okla., area. The new menu was called "All Day Breakfast: Bigger Menu" and featured McGriddles, McMuffins, biscuits, pancakes and other breakfast items. Soon thereafter, 84 McDonald's restaurants in and around Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point, North Carolina also start tested the expanded breakfast menu.
When McDonald's originally launched all-day breakfast back in October it only consisted of Egg McMuffins and pancakes as the fast-food giant sought to ease franchisees into handling the new menu.
So far, the all-day breakfast platform has energized McDonald's once-sagging sales. The Golden Arches reported first-quarter same-store sales in the U.S. surged 5.4%, the third consecutive quarterly increase.
The expansion of the breakfast menu to include more items may add a further jolt to sales.
"People are re-trying McDonald's, and it's adding a layer of sales to some meals," McDonald's CFO Kevin Ozan said at an investor presentation in March. Ozan pointed out that people are adding Egg McMuffins to their lunch orders, which is boosting the average check value.
That average check value could now be boosted even further by selling a more expensive McGriddle sandwich to someone buying fries and a Big Mac for lunch. Moreover, the availability of breakfast around the clock has led to people trading up from cheaper fare on the menu, according to Ozan.
McDonald's shares were down about a fraction of a percentage point to around $121 on Wednesday.









