Report: McDonald's tests new breakfast pastries

McDonald’s Corp. has reportedly begun testing new breakfast pastries in its San Diego market in an effort to fortify its breakfast business.

According to Bloomberg News, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based chain is offering Petite Pastries in raspberry and cinnamon cream cheese varieties. A spokeswoman told the news outlet two pastries cost $1.29 with the purchase of a beverage and $1.99 without a beverage purchase.

The brand’s last major systemwide breakfast introduction was the Egg White Delight McMuffin last April, and egg whites are now a possible substitution for any of McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches. Last September, the chain also advertised the option of substituting steak as the protein in its breakfast sandwiches.

McDonald’s had also previously tested all-day baked goods in a 600-location test in New England and upstate New York in March 2012. Among the items reportedly tested at that time were vanilla scones, banana bread and two types of muffins.

Officials for McDonald’s have repeatedly said that breakfast produces 25 percent of the chain’s sales in the United States. Several of them noted during McDonald’s most recent earnings call and Investor Day presentation that driving more frequency and spurring incremental food purchases in the morning daypart would be key to turning around flagging same-store sales.

“In the U.S., one of the challenges we have is we have lost some of our customer relevance, and we have lost it across several parts of the day,” chief financial officer Pete Bensen said during McDonald’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “If we lose relevance in coffee, then we are going to lose the transaction which yields a food purchase, and so we have got to make sure that the food is relevant and that the awareness around McDonald’s as a kitchen and a restaurant that cooks and prepares fresh high-quality food is strong and pronounced in our marketing and our messaging.”

McDonald’s operates or franchises approximately 35,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries, including more than 14,000 in the United States.

Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
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