McDonald’s has been struggling to give themselves an image makeover—they’ve cut the “supersize” menu and added salads and “apple dippers.” But what’s this?
The “Hugo”? What the heck is a Hugo?
The Hugo is McDonald’s new drink size, available only in certain markets, the Hugo is 42 oz and when filled with regular soda weighs in at an impressive 410 calories.
It’s priced as low as $0.89. A hell of a deal! But who needs that much soda? From the NYT:
“People, I believe, tend to drink more during the summer,” said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. “People are out and about.”
She said the Hugo was being offered because of customer demand, and so far, it has sold quite well. Ms. Proud cautioned about comparing the Hugo to McDonald’s old Supersize menu.
“That’s not what this is about,” she said. “You have to put it in context with the rest of our menu.”
That’s a rediculous amount of soda, but what can you do? People want what they want. We just wonder if it would sell as well if it said “410 calories” on it.
Did McDonald’s Give In to Temptation? [NYT]
(Photo:Noah Berger/NYT)
More From Consumerist
-
This Mr. Clean Label Helps You Brush Up On Basic Math Skills
-
Bill Would Make Illinois First State To Ban Lion Meat
-
Annie’s Frozen Pizzas Recalled Since Metal Shards Aren’t The Tastiest Topping
-
Store-Brand Sunscreens From Target, Walmart, Walgreens Outperform Higher-Priced Options In Test
-
Ronzoni Shrink Rays Pasta Packages, Or Maybe Wants Us To Cut Back On Carbs
@murph
I work at a retail store and when I came back from lunch once at wendys a co worker and i debated which size drink I had received. I had gotten a medium, but she would not believe it was anything less than a large!
@Jasmo: “Soda gives you diabetes. Just so you know!”
No, it doesn’t. Diabetes is a medical condition wherein the body cannot either: A: Make the insulin to process the body’s sugars (Type 1) or B: Handle the insulin being made (Type 2).
While sugared sodas can make diabetes worse, and certainly can exacerbate undiagnosed diabetes, it is not the direct cause. But the same problem can come of eating a lot of grains, potatoes, and corn. (Complex carbohydrates still become sugar to the body. To the body, sugar is sugar, whether refined cane, corn syrup, or a bag of carrots.)
@Murph1908: Yes! I drink a lot of pop (yeah, yeah, all my teeth are going to fall out, I know the consequences and I’m not going to sue anyone so leave me alone) but I ordered a medium from Wendy’s last time I was there and the thing is MASSIVE. The value size is what the old small used to be.
42 ounces? Please. Tell me when they have my 64s that I get at the gas station.
@mopar_man: @rockergal: When the commies took over in Russia they switched to metric. Are you some kinda commie? Metric = Un American. Next you’ll be wanting the title changed to “1,715,440 joules Without Taking a Bite…”
“For the brochures for the US they should print the information in TSP/TBSP!”
Those are useless. Canadians, USians, Brits, Others, they all have different definitions of those.
Finally, they brought a bigger size back!
I think that it’s a smart move to be more “health conscious” when it comes to food and stuff, but don’t take away my supersize drink and fries! You can sit there and call me fat and unhealthy, but at the end of the day, I’m happy with how I am. I enjoyed a Big Mac with a whole bunch of fries and more soda than I need!
I KNOW I don’t NEED that much soda, but I WANT that much soda! Excuse me for drinking a lot while I eat. If I only ate and drank what I needed, life would be boring. I’d be eating bread and water. I go to McDonalds because I want to eat that food. It’s not like I have no choice of food otherwise, and I’d find it pretty hard to believe that anyone would find McDonalds being their only choice for a meal. That being said, I don’t mind having a big tummy as long as I can enjoy my meals. If I cared about being fat, I’d work out.
Sweet! So if I inhale 5 of these suckers, I can knock out my 2000 calorie diet/day, and not have to worry about eating anything else! God bless America and its fatassedness.
@catskyfire: [www.firstendurance.com] would seem to disagree with you – “Depending on several factors, the diuretic effects caused by caffeine can be considered weak to negligible under normal caffeine consumption and for people without urinary tract problems.” They quote a number of published scientific studies. I wouldn’t worry too much.
Sorry, wrong quote – should have been @Thain:
Why does McDonald’s get criticized for everything? Go to a gas station, you’ll see enormous cups for soda, and they have been offered for years. It’s up to people to fill it with either diet soda or something without the calories (minute maid light lemonade is pretty good). Regarding the ingredients in diet soda, who knows what is worse, aspartame or HFCS? At least you don’t get all the empty calories with diet soda.
I recently went into a McDonald’s just for the 42 oz. cup. My local McDonald’s has decent iced tea. I’m pretty sure I received more than sixty-nine cents worth of lemon slices when I asked for them.
Total drink caloric content? Maybe 5 cals due to the lemon juice.
When I worked thier in high school(1999ish). We had humongo size(something to that effect). Which you got a 44 oz drink and 44oz cup of fries.
Also 42 oz is small compare to the corner stores around here(south texas). Every once in a while they have a 64oz fountain drink for 99cents.
@The Nature Boy:
Seems like a much easier diet…I don’t have to watch what I eat all day. Just drink 5 a day and I know my caloric intake is JUST RIGHT! Yay, McDonalds!
@catskyfire: Ok. Re: Diabetes, Catskyfire is close to how it works.
You are either A) Born with it, B) At risk of developing it, or C) Never gonna get it so stop worrying. Problem is, you know if you’re (A), but the only way to tell if you are (B) or (C) is to actually develop a form of diabetes. The people in (B) who have the potential to become diabetic are no different than people who have the baldness gene or history of cancer in the family. It is something that if there is a family history of, you have the chance of having it, but it can skip you too. If it’s NOT in the family history, you can STILL get it, but your odds are lower.
RE: The big cup, and why it is the next best thing to free porn…
Take my dayjob. I sit at a desk (with plenty of time to F’ the dog on the Consumerist apparently), and don’t really get to move around a lot. A nice big honkin cup ‘o wakeup juice is just what is needed. And it being LESS than the price of the medium or large I normally get, Kupo!
Oh, and no, no Hugo in Canada. Or at least, not at my local clownstand.
@catskyfire: you didn’t really think I was serious, did you?
@Ickypoopy:
With a HANDLE? That is AWESOME!
@TeraGram:
And 5 times the caffeine of Coca Cola! You must have been FLYING!
You know, 2 liter bottles of soda are usually on sale somewhere for 99 cents!
Also, you can buy your own soda maker at sodaclubusa.com and drink until you puke!
One last thing. Don’t think you are drinking healthier by drinking fruit juice. 8 ounces of fruit juice has 100 calories and a LOT of sugar.
Thems soda thingy ain’t available in Alberta
Drink Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator. It has Electrolytes.
Dude, I don’t think my bladder is that big….
@Jasmo: “you didn’t really think I was serious, did you?”
Any reason I shouldn’t have? You didn’t make any of the usual sarcastic marks to suggest you weren’t. And it’s something that a lot of people believe/repeat. Right up there with the ‘you’ll catch cold if you go outside with wet hair’.
i wish i could get 42 oz of iced coffee for that price.
i love this. the fatter and dumber the majority get, the more power the members of us ‘thin elite’ have.
In L.A. , this 42 ounce soda sells for .69 cents.
While I think this is an obscene amount of soda, I was just a little pissed when I ordered a medium Diet Coke and was charged $1.79!
@catskyfire: Yeah, dry wit. It certainly was an exaggeration. But then again… [www.sfgate.com] … I wasn’t completely blowing smoke.
What’s wrong with the 42 ouncer? Nothing, especially at this good price. Get two straws and share with a friend! Or use only one straw if it’s a really good friend.
It’s called “Hugo” because if you eat enough Supersize meals with these babies on the side, you’ll end up looking like Hurley from “Lost.”
Are you people suggesting that merely by selling a larger cup that people will drink more soda? Ameircans are by and large greedy for soda, I see people sitting in the restaurant getting their free refills, why not save them the short walk and give them a bigger cup? McD’s isn’t forcing anyone to buy this. My problem with McDonalds is not the size of the cup but rather the choice of drinks, where is the Green Tea, where is the vitamin water, where is the Gatorade? Can’t they give us watery drinks such as these as a selection?
@Observer2121: Gatorade is worse for you than pop. It has just as much sugar, worse kinds of it in fact, and enough salt that it makes you over-drink. Hugo Cups + Gatorade = the easiest way to make people’s stomachs asplode.
@bbbici: The “Thin Elite” consists of the other end of the retard spectrum, where teenage girls have more ribs showing than an ethiopian child, and image-obsessed bitches dishonor the great taste of food by puking it back up. The only advantage the Thin have over Fatso’s is at Super Paper Mario…
Somewhere inbetween fat and thin lies happiness, and the ability to eat french fries because you know you’re going for a run later that night.
Is this… a lost reference? The Hugo?
hmmm… Sad
42? Thats hugo? The most common sale at my local gas station is 44oz, they also have 64oz, but the latter just isn’t easy to tote around.
42oz is less then a can of coke bigger then a 32oz drink, and is equal to 3.5 cans of coke.
Is that REALLY a LOT? Doesn’t seem like it to me!
Ickypoopy beat me to it. I was going to say that the convenience store has been selling the Super Big Gulp for ages and that sucker is 44oz!
@jacques: I believe it is only $0.07-$0.12 cents for the syrup, plus a trivial cost for the CO2, water, and the cup itself. So, it’s a huge margin, even on this scale.
FWIW, baseball statiums have sold a drink at least as big for a while in a “collector’s cup” along with the promise of a free refill. On a hot day in bleacher seats, when your brain is not 100%, that sounds like a good deal. Of course, about 40% through you realize you can not finish this drink ever. Darn marketing.
@Dervish: The website you cite is essentially an ad for caffeine supplements for athletes. You include the phrase “under normal caffeine consumption.” The fact is that Coke (for example) contains 45.6 mg of caffeine per 12 ounces. That’s 136.8 in the Hugo. Your source says that side effects for an athlete (150 lbs) consuming 210 mg of caffeine include: “Anxiety, jitters, insomnia, inability to focus, GI unrest, irritability, and dependency with withdrawal side effects.” Would you consider 136.8 mg of caffeine “normal consumption” for an average-sized non-athlete? GI unrest? good god!
For an extra 10 cents you can get a 42 oz soda on a Taco Bell combo meal (instead of the regular 32 oz). It’s been that was for a while here in MI.
New research connects drinking more than one can of soda a day to metabolic syndrome.
McDonald’s offers new drink size that is equivalent to several cans of soda.
Do they plan these releases or what?
@nequam: Ok, I’ll admit that a website with an agenda is questionable, but they do cite several scientific papers on the subject. How about [www.mckinley.uiuc.edu] , a website from the McKinley Health Center at Urbana-Champaign?
“There is no evidence that caffeine in beverage form is dehydrating. Its diuretic effects are usually compensated for by the beverage’s fluid content.”
I’d think that this is doubly true for someone who sips at it all day while living a fairly sedentary lifestyle. This site also lists 300 mg (about 3 cups of coffee worth) as a moderate intake. 136.8 mg (and you’re assuming the cup contains no ice, which is probably erroneous) just isn’t that much. Again, caffeine and its diuretic/dehydrating effects should not be something to worry over, here. I’d be much more worried about the sugar content and overall calories.
@Dervish: Fair enough. Thanks.
What is the big deal? They want to compete with the giant drinks at convenience stores? They’ve been doing it for years and the price of the Hugo is pretty much in step with such places everywhere I’ve been in the country.
@nequam: My fault for quoting a shill site in the first place.
“Making matters worse, Hugo ads are available in several languages, making sure that minorities – who are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic – are aware of the budget beverage.”
Remember folks, McDonald’s hates minorities.
42oz?! Jeez thats almost as big as the suckers you get at Seven Eleven…
So, if I weigh 175lbs and want a 20oz. Coke that’s okay. But if I weight 350lbs and want a 42oz. Coke, that’s not okay?
To hell with personal responsibility! McDonald’s is forcing me to drink 420 calories of diabetes inducing HFCS! If it had real sugar in it, they probably wouldn’t be able to drink it all…
@rockergal: same, but i’m kinda used to the metric system =P.
McDonald’s is doing what any company in a free market does–responding to consumer demand. If consumers demanded smaller servings, McDonald’s would provide them.
Just why is it McDonald’s responsibility to ensure that people stick to a healthy diet? It’s not like they put a gun to anyone’s head and make them eat Big Macs.
Let’s stop pretending that this is a public policy issue. People are responsible for their own decisions. If they choose to eat junk food, that’s their problem.
It’s no secret that regular soda is full of sugar, that a 42-oz drink has 3x the calories of a 14-oz., or that fast food is bad for your health. If people decide to eat at McDonald’s anyway, hey, it’s a free country. And if you don’t like McDonald’s, you have the inalienable right not to eat there.
This has been offered here in St. Louis, MO for the last two years. It sells very well. I get it sometimes with the new Sweet Tea they have (just launched this summer.) Many times the stores here run out of cups from people buying the drinks (probably because of the humid STL weather.)
This has also caused all of the gas stations to combat with cheaper fountain drinks. Many times the Quik Trip stores and other gas stations here will have drinks ranging from .25 to .69 cents.
Mobil gas stations offer .25 20 oz fountain drink, coffee, or ICEE/Slurpee/whatever the day after the St. Louis Cardinals score 6 or more runs in a game. This is probably the second most popular drink special in STL.