Coalition of Franchisee Associations

March 2, 2021

Fake Meat in the USA

McDonald's VP Marion Gross says, "there are no plans to roll out the McPlant platform nationally in the U.S. at this time".

Sorry Marion, that's not your decision. That decision will be made on Wall Street, as will the return of All Day Breakfast. 

It's obvious that Q1 and Q2 2021 same-store sales comps will be pretty easy Q3 will be a little tougher and Q4 2021 might be very challenging. But, after enjoying a few quarters of good increases the Wall Street analysts will be thoroughly spoiled and if USA sales go soft they will expect management to pull some arrows out of the McQuiver.

Two of these arrows will be ADB and McPlant. If these events were to happen today the analysts would push for ADB. But, depending on how much fanfare fake meat products get, they might conclude the answer to everything is fake meat. 

The challenge for McDonald's Owner/Operators is that no one tells the truth about fake meat. The manufacturers inflate thier numbers. The restaurants selling fake meat products boast about their success, but thier same store sales are lousy or mediocre. Does anyone think that McDonald's Corp. will tell USA Owner/Operators the truth about test results in foreign markets? 

So McDonald's Owner/Operator should be prepared for some arm wrestling later in the year. Ad don't believe anything you hear about the sales success of fake meat. Much of that news is also fake.

P.S. Wouldn't it be fun to have some transparency about the investments that McDonald's executives and directors have made in Beyond Meat?

9 comments:

Richard Adams said...

We can't blame the fake meat manufacturers. Ten or twelve patties a day times nearly 14,000 McDonald's stores is a lot of product. Add to that the amount of product that expires and goes into the dumpster.
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Richard Adams said...


Jonathan Maze
@jonathanmaze

Burger chain same-store sales 4Q:

McDonald's 5.5%
Wendy's 5.5%
Burger King -2.9%

Wendy's results slower than it seems given the addition of breakfast. $WEN $MCD $QSR
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Anonymous said...

My son works at a supermarket and says they throw away more fake meat than they sell!

Howard Penney said...

Where did Ms. Gross make those comments? Is she the one that owns shares in Beyond meat? Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Do we really have to do another McLean?

I was in the kitchen from the time that one rolled out until the day we threw the last one in the trash. People don’t come to McDonald’s for healthy or green initiatives, social responsibility, modern OR progressive. They come to get something that tastes good, is convenient, hopefully they are treated well and all done quickly.

Anything done outside of that scope is self-serving stupidity from foolish people who are looking after themselves in some way or another. We manage to make this work in spite of the foolish leadership, not because of them. They have NO connection to our world, they are simply leaches on a host.

Anonymous said...

"foolish people who are looking after themselves" there is no better way to describe McD upper management.

Richard Adams said...

Howard - There has been speculation that MCD execs are invested in Beyond Meat since Don Thompson got involved. However, most of the MCD execs who worked with Don are long gone. But its only speculation since MCD execs don't disclose their personal financials to MCD franchisees.
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Anonymous said...

Yeah, one thing they arent heavy invested in is the MCD brand. Some aren't even minimally invested, as required.

Anonymous said...

Chris K STILL does not own the required number of MCD shares!