McDonald’s announced Friday a new everyday value menu featuring a variety of discounts and deals to boost traffic and sales in the coming year.
Set to launch on January 7, the national McValue menu will include meal deals—like the current $5 Meal Deal—in-app offers, local food and drink specials, and a new Buy One, Add One for $1 offer at breakfast and lunch/dinner. All of it will be housed in one place on the menu, making it easier for guests to find value.
DOWNLOAD: Average-Unit Volumes for Top Fast-Food Chains
The McValue’s Buy One, Add One for $1 deal at breakfast features the Sausage McMuffin, Sausage Biscuit, Sausage Burrito, and Hash Browns. The lunch/dinner option offers the six-piece Chicken McNuggets, a Double Cheeseburger, and the McChicken. Meanwhile, the $5 Meal Deal has been extended through next summer. As a reminder, that offer covers a guest’s choice of a McDouble or McChicken with small fries, four-piece Chicken McNuggets, and a small drink. Also, in partnership with franchisees, McDonald’s will continue to offer local deals and in-app promotions in partnership with franchisees in local communities.
“When it comes to value, we know there’s no one-size-fits-all. We’ve worked closely with our franchisees to create a new platform that will let our customers define value on their own terms,” Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA, said in a statement. “From deals on their personal go-to order to universal favorites like the $5 Meal Deal, we’re excited to give fans more ways to save every time they visit one of our restaurants.”
READ MORE: McDonald’s Teases ‘More Holistic’ Value Platform for 2025
CFO Ian Borden indicated during McDonald’s October earnings call that a “more holistic U.S. value platform” was coming in 2025. The U.S. business segment took advice from international value menus like McSmart in Germany and France and the Savers Menu in the U.K. CEO Chris Kempczinski described it as a “branded platform that can house all of these various individual value components.”
The chain’s U.S. same-store sales fell 0.3 percent in Q3 after seeing slightly negative traffic. The lower visitation rates fell below the brand’s expectations, but trends began to turn as it exited the quarter. By the end of Q3, the U.S. business had outperformed the QSR industry in comp sales and comp guest counts. Also, the third quarter’s comp guest count gap to most near-end competitors was the highest since Q1 2023.
The $5 Meal Deal helped the company gain share with lower-income guests for the first time in more than a year. The Collector’s Edition attracted attention, as did the Chicken Big Mac launch. To start Q4, the brand experienced comp sales of close to positive mid-single digits and positive guest counts just below that.
The momentum was stopped by the E. coli outbreak, first reported on October 22. Traffic decreased 6.4 percent on October 23 year-over-year. It also dropped 9.1 percent on October 24 and 9.5 percent on October 25, according to Placer.ai.
McDonald’s hopes to boost Q4 traffic and sales with the McRib and the continued push of digital channels. Kempcinzski said the brand will bring “the full resources of McDonald’s to bear to reengage customers.”
The chain ended its Dollar Menu more than a decade ago and replaced it with the $1, $2, $3 Menu in 2018. However, customers have previously complained that no items on the menu were actually $1.
