McDonald's looking to beef up with larger burgers

McDonald’s is looking to potentially beef up its offerings with a bigger burger.

CFO Ian Borden said Tuesday McDonald’s has "created a larger satiating burger" as the fast-food giant "look[s] to further build on our leadership in beef."

"We’ll be testing this burger in a few markets later this year, ensuring that it has universal appeal before scaling it across the globe," he added.

The fast-food chain said earlier this year its beef and chicken categories have become roughly neck-and-neck in annual systemwide sales, coming in at about $25 billion each. 

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McDonald’s USA told FOX Business it had no additional details about the larger burger when reached Tuesday afternoon for comment.

The fast-food giant, whose footprint spanned over 41,800 locations at the end of 2023, has previously indicated it was working on larger burgers.

"We’re addressing an unmet customer need across markets for larger high-quality burgers," CEO Chris Kempczinski said in early February. "We’re working horizontally across the system to innovate. As we test and learn, we’ll be working to understand how the new offering will complement our already established burgers, like the Double QPC [Quarter Pounder with Cheese] or the Big Tasty."

In late January, U.S. locations added the Double Big Mac and its four beef patties to menus for a "limited time." 

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Over the past year, McDonald’s has made various changes to its popular cheeseburger, double cheeseburger, hamburger, McDouble and Big Mac.

The tweaks, made through its "Best Burger" initiative, aimed to make burgers "hotter," "juicier" and "tastier," the fast-food chain has said. It kicked off that program in early 2023.  

Borden said Tuesday that McDonald’s has already rolled out the "Best Burger" initiative at over 80% of the fast-food chain’s locations, including those across the U.S.

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It has its sights set on incorporating the updated burgers at almost all locations before the end of 2026, according to the CFO.

The Big Mac and Quarter Pounder are among the 17 menu items McDonald’s has said are each worth $1 billion.