McDonald’s is looking to boost sales by improving its classic menu items such as the Big Mac and double cheeseburger with softer buns, gooier cheese, and more onions and sauce.
The Chicago-based fast-food giant plans to roll out “softer, pillowy” golden-brown buns, gooier cheese and a “juicier, caramelized” taste as onions will be placed on patties while they’re still on the grill.
“We found that small changes, like tweaking our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting our grill settings for a better sear, added up to a big difference in making our burgers more flavorful than ever,” chef Chad Schafer, McDonald’s senior director of culinary innovation, said Monday in a statement.
The Big Mac is also getting saucier as the item will come smothered in more Big Mac Sauce.
The new enhancements were first introduced in international markets including in Australia, Belgium, and Canada.
The restaurant chain has been piloting the additions in some American markets, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Ariz., Portland, Ore., and Sacramento, Calif.
The changes follow the restaurant’s 2018 announcement that it was switching to fresh beef for its Quarter Pounders.
In 2021, McDonald’s launched its crispy chicken sandwich to compete with the steadily growing Chick-fil-A.
Earlier this month, the company laid off hundreds of employees in its corporate offices and cut pay and benefits for others.
McDonald’s also announced it was shuttering its field offices as part of a companywide restructuring.
Several of those who were laid off were executives who spent decades with the company.
The chain known for its Golden Arches has more than 150,000 employees globally, with about 70% based outside the United States, including in company-owned restaurants.
The layoffs do not impact the more than 2 million workers in franchised McDonald’s restaurants around the world.
McDonald’s restructuring comes despite the fact that its most recent earnings report beat analyst estimates.
In the fourth quarter of last year, McDonald’s reported net income of $1.9 billion, or $2.59 per share, which is up from $1.64 billion, or $2.18 per share, year over year.
Shares of McDonald’s were largely unchanged Monday, closing up 33 cents at $289.31.