Dive Brief:
- McDonald’s will serve its bagel breakfast sandwiches nationwide, the company said in a press release Tuesday.
- Additionally, McDonald’s locations in New York City began serving Krispy Kreme doughnuts Tuesday, in an expansion of the doughnut marker’s partnership with the Golden Arches.
- Both menu item expansions are accompanied by in-app discounts on the Egg McMuffin to commemorate 50 years of McDonald’s breakfast, according to the release.
Dive Insight:
Breakfast has been a bright spot for McDonald’s as the chain looks to recover from a sales drop caused by an E. coli outbreak late last year. The nationwide addition of bagel breakfast sandwiches and expansion of Krispy Kreme doughnuts could help drive traffic alongside discounted offers.
On McDonald’s most recent earnings call, Ian Borden, the chain’s CFO, said that consumer response to deals like its Buy One Add One for $1 breakfast offer have been successful.
“We've seen really strong take-up of that offer and breakfast has been a really strong daypart for the U.S. business through '24. It's an area where we're taking share,” Borden said. Borden also foreshadowed the 50th anniversary deals on the Feb. 10 call.
On the discounting front, McDonald’s will offer Egg McMuffins or Sausage McMuffin with Eggs for $1 on March 2 to consumers who order in the app. From March 3 to 30, consumers who order in-app breakfast delivery can get a buy-one-get-one Sausage McMuffin with Egg.
These egg sandwich promotions come at a moment when other chains, like Denny’s and Waffle House, are adding surcharges to eggs and egg-based products in response to an ongoing bird flu epidemic among livestock that has crimped the country’s egg supply.
McDonald’s has also been expanding its partnership with Krispy Kreme to new markets in recent quarters, with doughnut service starting late last year in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The Golden Arches is using the doughnuts to fill a gap left by the sunsetting of the McCafe pastry lineup in 2023. The chain began piloting the doughnut program in Kentucky the year before.
New York City is a major addition for Krispy Kreme and McDonald’s partnership, which covered 1,900 stores at the end for 2024, according to Krispy Kreme’s earnings release. Krispy Kreme doughnuts will be available through more than half of McDonald’s U.S. store base by the end of 2025, with full deployment complete by late 2026.
