Double cheeseburger fans are going to have to face a grim reality. The rising cost of raw materials means that McDonald’s has to pay more for beef– and the double cheeseburger will probably have to leave the dollar menu.
“The cost implications of having that value menu have changed when you see what’s going on in beef and chicken,” CEO Ralph Alvarez told investors, “The way the dollar menu looks today won’t be the way it’s going to look next year. In this current environment, we’ve got to make sure we’re pricing smart, not just pricing low.”
The Chicago Tribune reports that McDonald’s did not elaborate on what exactly they will be changing about the popular menu, but did disclose that “tests” are underway in which the double cheeseburger is more expensive.
Get them while they’re cheap.
Changes ahead for dollar menu [Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: Matt McGee )
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For three dollars I remove the bread from one DC and one piece of bread from the other two DCs, then I slap the whole thing together. Six patties! mmmm mmm good
I’m always amazed by the comments I read here and elsewhere by people who shun McDonald’s using one hand and stuff their face with a double cheeseburger using the other. Which is it? If the place is so awful, suck it up and stop eating there!
I hate McDonald’s. The food is crap. It tastes like crap. It’s crap for your body. I don’t eat there, and I last time I had McDonald’s must have been ten years ago.
@howie_in_az: Soy is in no way cheaper than beef.
I can get burger patties at $4 a pound.
Veggie burger patties are more than double that.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
it’s the best way to get rid of the munchies
Note: I was out in rural Virginia and they had a bacon cheeseburger on their dollar menu. The dub was there too, but maybe it’s a pilot program intending to replace the second beef patty with a slice or two of bacon? (Wendy’s seems to get away with that just fine)
@howie_in_az:
Well said. The taste of a sandwich is largely predicated on the condiments, anyway. My wife and I switched over to Gardenburgers, and pile on some lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, onion, and pickle and I can’t tell the difference.
@howie_in_az:
Oh, and also I live about a mile up the road (up-wind) of two of the plants where all of those wonderful smells and tastes are created. The funny thing is that, driving by, you always smell the same thing–sort of a vaguely sweetish tutti-frutti aroma.
My McD’s doesn’t have the double cheese burger or 4 chicken mcnuggets on the dollar menu, but it does have the mcchicken and fries:)
@Barry White Stripes, Office LW:
I once went to a mcdonalds in NYC and got a 6pc nuggets for something like $2.89. While waiting for my food, having already paid, i noticed that the dollar menu had 4 for $1. so basically, i could have had 8 for less than i paid for 6. I felt cheated, so in a fit of childish frustration, i fired off a message on the Mcdonalds customer feedback form expressing my displeasure at this pricing scheme when i got home to my computer.
To my eternal surprise, i actually got a call from the manager of that location (broadway, just south of 8th street FYI) on my cell phone offering a free lunch as a compensation. i was shocked. i thanked her, but never collected on my lunch. the call was more than enough.
Okay, math time. A standard McDonald’s beef patty is 1.6 ounces, so you can make ten of them from a pound of beef. I see ground chuck going for $2.99/pound all the time, so that would be 30 cents per patty. 60 cents for meat, a dime for a bun, and another dime’s worth of processed American cheese food comes out to 80 cents food cost.
And that’s at consumer prices — I’m assuming McD’s sources their stuff for less. Surely someone must give them a bulk discount….
@Starfury: that sucks. i reckon my homemade burgers only cost about $1.50/each to make – they’re waaaaay tastier & HUGE!
ingredients
===========
ground chuck from butcher: $1.19/lb. or $4.76/4 lbs.
best rolls in the world: $2.49 for 8
pepperjack cheese: $4.49/10 oz. (1.25 oz. for each burger
vidalia onion: ~70¢ (only need about 1/4 of it)
garlic: ~50¢ (only need 2 or 3 cloves)
don’t tell anyone, but the secret is to chop the garlic & onions up really, really fine & mix it into the ground beef before cooking – makes the burgers explode with flavor!
I just ate fast food (BK) for the first time in about two years. My God, I feel disgusting. That crap is not food. This message brought to you by Not Really Relevant Productions.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…
Call me old fashioned, but I still long for the days when once a week, Hamburgers were 29 cents, and cheeseburgers 39 cents. Maybe I’m a pig, but a day’s meals (2 for breakfast 2 for lunch 3 for dinner) NOT homecooked for barely 3 bucks was awesome.
Has anyone noticed that the oil from a McD’s Double Cheeseburger seems to get into your fingertips and not wash out? Seriously, when ever I eat one of those I can never wash away that smell off of my fingers, no matter how much washing/soap I use.
…I’ve since taken it as a really bad sign and stopped eating McD’s
@sean77: *cries* I want a Jack in the Box here, if only for their taco deal…and Sourdough Jack.
Too bad they’re going away. When I’m down to my last dollar, I know I can always swing through there and get the dbl-chz ($1.08 w/tax) to at least fill me up. Now I’ll have to hunt for more change.
@SexCpotatoes: meh wendy’s burgers suck, they’re just as flimsy as the ones at Mickey D’s. I go to Wendy’s for the spicy chicken, McD’s for the filet o fish/nuggets and BK/Krystal et al for the burgers
Back when our dollar was worth something the dollar menu was great when i would visit Canada. It was like the 65 cents American menu.
@Mr. Guy: I once ordered some kind of value combo from McDonalds, but I wanted it without the drink. The cashier said they knew how to ring that up, but it ended up being more expensive than the combo with the drink by like a nickle. I was pretty angry, since not giving me something should cost less. Or, I could have asked for a coke and dropped it in the trash can, which does noone any good.
But then, for about 6 weeks during the summer, I had the “Mulan meal” which was something like a small drink, fries, and 4 nuggets for a ridiculously low price (no toy). I’d supplement with another 4x nuggets for $1, and its was still getting lunch for like $3.18 per day.
I shouldn’t be surprised if some of the food drops off of the dollar menu…better than using the shrink ray, right?
I’ll miss it if they drop the McChicken though. I love grabbing one of those when I was on my way home from volleyball.
I had a dbl cheezburger, value fries, and sm coke just yesterday. And large cokes were on sale for $1, so I got the upgrade. SWEET!
(In the interest of health (?) I got a diet coke)
There was something in NYC about limiting dollar menu items because they couldn’t afford to offer unlimited $1 items and pay the rent.
Seems like the $1 menu will soon grow to the $2 dollar menu.
Just don’t mess with my McChicken. My tastebuds cheer but my arteries cry.
Most of the time when I go to McDonalds I get three cheeseburgers. Then my friends make fun of me because I should just get double cheeseburgers because they are technically cheaper.
I don’t because the cheeseburger is this right ratio of meat, cheese, bun, and sauce. The double cheeseburgers throw the ratio and taste off for me.
Okay, that last paragraph alone merits people making fun of me now.
Love the McChicken, I would be sad too if that got dropped.
@BurntToast:
I understand completely. However, I always found the single cheeseburger to be very dry. Too much bun, not enough stuff in the bun.
Thank god I found this thread after I already ate a good lunch (that didn’t involve McDs).
@BurntToast: I hear you! It has nothing to do with value when you get just the cheeseburger. Not only do I love the ratio of flavor, but how it feels when you hold it, etc.
Yeah, I have problem… I’m aware of it and dealing with it.
@RabbitDinner: I think at some point wendy’s used to suck a lot less. I used to eat there regularly in Maine through 2002-2004. Never had a problem with their food.
We kind of stopped eating fast food for a few years, then, after moving to california, and some really long work days and being too tired to think of anything better to eat, we went to Wendy’s a few times. The stuff was unbearable. I really don’t think I’ve changed that much in terms of my taste preferences, I think the Wendy’s here is just awful.
@ludwigk: But don’t you have In-N-Out in CA? I don’t remember the name, but last time I was in LA there was this damn good Mexican fast food restaurant that had chicken only
@Imaginary_Friend: I just moved here 6 weeks ago. The prices for everything are crazy!
Don’t worry, I’ll do my part for the economy the next time I’m back in the States. I’m going to be stocking up on everything!
The most common sense thing for them to do is make the double hamburger a dollar & charge extra for the cheese.
The same goes for the Quarter-Pounder.
That way they still have the double burger on the menu, but get an extra 20¢-30¢ for the cheese.
@sean77: No, its just that the mark up on “soy” burgers is quite a bit more then regular ground beef. Not to mention the higher cost of some of the other ingredients that go into the soy burgers. Soy is commonly used to “stretch” ground beef in order to decrease the over all cost of the gb.
You see it a lot in those microwave burittos that you get at like 5 for a $1. When I was a vegitarian I’d get those all the time because even the ground beef ones didn’t have any actual meat in them. Just textured soy protein.
@ludwigk: I hate that too. The Arbys around here had their Beef and Cheddar combo on sale but since I didn’t want the fries or coke I’d just get the sandwhich. Every time they’d point out that the meal was cheaper and every time I’d point out that if I didn’t eat the fries or coke it was just a waste for everyone. They’d usually give me the employee discount to even it out.
I’m shorting double cheeseburgers.
I haven’t seen a double cheezberger for a dollar for a long time. Shouldn’t this article be about the McChicken, or the Whopper Jr.?
@Imaginary_Friend:
well, according to the Economist, Norway is the most overvalued in terms of fast food parity…
[www.economist.com]
Pretty neat graphic, huh?
Any idea how many calories are in a double cheeseburger? Just curious. I know that fast food places in NYC have had to start posting this info.
I love the little plastic cheeseburgers that come in the Happy Meal. They still have little tiny chopped onions on them, which I love. The Happy Meal is exactly the right amount of food for me, so nothing goes to waste. If I can’t go home for lunch I sometimes go to McD’s and get a Happy Meal. I won’t miss the cheap Double Cheeseburger because I never could eat the whole thing, so I stopped getting it.
And if I don’t like the toy, I give it to my coworker for her little girl.
I dont’ go to McD’s much anymore lately, since I’ve been trying to eat more healthy food.
A double cheeseburger hasn’t been on the north/central jersey dollar menu for like years…
Then again, McD’s makes me physically sick.
Um, Why am I the first one to make a comment about the Trans Fat content in the meat? Even the Sugar Cookies have it stuffed in there. Does the idea that you are eating something with the pure intention of giving you a heart attack just slip your mind? Christ, even KFC removed it. 2 grams per double cheeseburger is a lot, seriously.
My local McD’s (Queens, NY) has pretty much nothing on the dollar menu anymore. I think you can get 2 apple pies for $1, and maybe one or two other random things. No sandwiches at all. Can they do that?
I swear we were the last place on earth to get the $1 Doubles. McD’s in small towns in the middle of nowhere had them before we did. I’m sure the jerk franchisee from our town would be more than happy to jack them up to $1.99 or more.
McDonalds makes me ill now, but I used to enjoy the occasional Big Mac. I just wish they would actually use beef on their burgers instead of that cardboard substitute.
Beyond the whole sick to the stomach thing, which is a pretty good reason not to eat there, I have given up on McDonalds because they won’t sell a breakfast value meal with a small drink. You have to buy a large drink. Bite me, McD’s.
Heh. “dollar menu”. I was born and raised in Fairbanks, AK, and at least for a while now it’s been the $1.50 menu. I guess that’s what I get for living in Alaska.
@ludwigk:
It could be a combination of both. I’m sure the quality has gone downhill.
But your tastebuds CAN change or be recalibrated. I gave up eating processed food. Eating stuff like Doritos or Oreos or a Big Mac is is big disappointment now. Everything tastes WAY too salty or sweet, whereas it used to taste delicious. Not to be gross, but I can tell if something has artificial flavoring because it repeats on me if it does. I was burping “flame-broiled” for a whole afternoon after eating a Whopper.
This would be a better place to use the product shrink-ray… fast food isn’t worth it after the second bite anyway
@HogwartsAlum: Yes, I like the McD’s happy meal also mainly because the happy meal content is the equivalent of a full 1950′s adult meal plus you get a free (chinese slave labor assembled) toy…
@Parapraxis: That’s funny — although the background graphic is pretty unsettling. Just what do those hooligans intend on doing to poor Ronald? He looks petrified.
Did anyone else notice there’s a sub-thread going on here — several people have now confirmed that McDonald’s has made them physically ill after eating there. Hmmm…
I just passed a taco shop on the way home which is advertising “Get a taco and a drink for the price of a gallon of gas!” Either that sign’s a year old or that must be one kickass taco and a soda with no ice.
@RabbitDinner: El Pollo Loco?