Crain&#x27;s restaurants reporter Ally Marotti and host Amy Guth discuss McDonald’s struggle with its value strategy.<br><br>Plus: Landmark Loop office building takes step toward data center conversion; Pritzker pens letter to Trump, seeking tariff refunds for Illinois families; Outcome Health founders’ fraud convictions upheld; and Indiana preps for Bears with plan for new South Shore Line stop in Hammond.<br><br>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

McDonald's value problem is bigger than just prices

Crain's Daily Gist

Governor Pritzker writes a letter to President Trump seeking tariff refunds for Illinois families. And McDonald's is struggling with its value strategy. I'll talk about it with reporter Ali Marati. McDonald's, they've proven time and again that they can fix these things quickly. Yeah. But it's just going to be hard because 95% of their U.S. restaurants are franchised. That's a lot of franchisees to get on board with the strategy.

I'm Amy Guth and this is Crain's Daily Gist for Friday, August 7th.

Connect with a banker today at oldnational.com slash commercial banking. Member FDIC. I'm joined by reporter Ali Marati here to talk about McDonald's value strategy. You and I have talked so many times about McDonald's and the various tactics they've tried. Of course, such a giant brand. There's so many inroads to talking about McDonald's. But let's talk about this aspect in particular.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, thanks for having me, Amy. McDonald's, you're right. It's so huge. I looked at the latest numbers actually for this story. They have 13,700 roughly locations throughout the U.S. And with this in particular, you know, one of the things that McDonald's is up against is their perception of value. Right. So they reported earnings recently, second quarter earnings, and their sales in the U.S. were lackluster.

And there were a couple of things going on there. You know, they had a really strong quarter a year ago, second quarter a year ago. So that always makes growth appear a little stymied. But, you know, what's really going on here, a bigger part of it is that really for the past year, they've been trying to convince American consumers that it's once again a place to find a cheap meal. Right.

McDonald's value problem is bigger than just prices

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

McDonald's value problem is bigger than just prices

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.