OAK BROOK Ill. McDonald’s Corp. will increase the price of its popular Double Cheeseburger on Monday, and change the Dollar Menu to include a new sandwich, the McDouble, which is made with less cheese.
The change, which had been in the works for months, will increase the Double Cheeseburger’s suggested selling price to $1.19, the company said Wednesday. The McDouble will be made with two all-beef patties and one slice of cheese, rather than the two slices in the Double Cheeseburger.
Food costs have been a nemesis for restaurants all year, as the price of cheese and other commodities spiked just as consumer traffic dipped because of the declining economy. At McDonald’s, sales have remained strong — the No. 1 burger chain posted a domestic same-store sales increase of 5.3 percent in October — but bottom line pressures were hard to ignore. McDonald’s had been testing ways to make the Double Cheeseburger and the Dollar Menu more profitable without risking consumer backlash. The Dollar Menu accounted for as much as 14 percent of total U.S. sales in its latest quarter, McDonald's said.
“Our customers tell us that value is important,” Greg Watson, vice president of marketing at McDonald’s USA, said in a statement. “We’re responding, by providing our customers even more choices, at the everyday affordability they expect.”
Larry Miller, a securities analyst with RBC Capital, estimated in late October that McDonald’s operators would save 6 cents per sandwich by eliminating one slice of cheese, which could boost cash flow by $15,000 per restaurant per year.
About 85 percent of McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. units are franchised.