McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) is making an effort to make parents and nutritionists feel better about future decisions to feed kids Happy Meals. The fast food chain, which is often criticized for being a leading supplier of junk food, has pledged to reduce the amount of fat, sodium and calories in the world’s most famous kids meal.
Come January, McDonald’s says it will add a serving of apples slices, carrots, raisins, pineapple slices or mandarin oranges to all of its Happy Meals and reduce by half the amount of fries served, unless parents request otherwise. It also will launch a mobile app dedicated to nothing but nutritional information.
And that’s not all. By 2015, McDonalds will reduce the amount of sodium in its meals by 15%. And by 2020, McDonalds will restructure the portion sizes in its Happy Meals to help curb the calorie intake the box meals offer.
To pull off the latter, McDonald’s will take suggestions from parents during an August listening tour conducted by McDonald’s USA president Jan Fields and other executives, as well as from an online forum it will set up for parents. McDonald’s says the collective changes to the Happy Meal could reduce its calorie content by 20%.
McDonald’s denies the initiative is inspired by impending state and federal mandates that will force the fast-food industry to post nutritional information and curb the marketing of junk food to kids. Instead, McDonald’s says it is giving parents what they want.
Still, the chain isn’t eliminating the toy or fries from its Happy Meals. And with no law requiring certain changes take place sooner, all of its reforms won’t be fully implemented until 2020. Yet McDonald’s can roll out new burgers through a Facebook campaign in a matter of months and remodel thousands of restaurants in less than five years.
Consumers shouldn’t be surprised that McDonald’s is reluctant to make changes to the Happy Meal too quickly. The meal, which lures most kids with its promise of a toy, accounts for about 10% of its sales.
All things considered, it’s nice to see McDonald’s is making some important changes to the nutritional content of the Happy Meal, even if it doesn’t fully acknowledge why. But then again, McDonald’s always has been as savvy a marketer as it has been a burger maker.
Cynthia Wilson does not own shares of any of the aforementioned stocks.
