McDonald’s ace in the hole, the McRib, returns the moment it’s McNeeded
McDonald’s needs consumers to come back. Enter the McRib.
Inflation may be sticky, but the barbecue sauce coating McDonald’s much sought after McRib sandwich is much, much stickier.
On Wednesday, the fast-food chain announced the return of the McRib, a hoagie roll stuffed with long, flat pork patty with ridge marks mimicking bone-in ribs. The seasonal fan favorite is a lever McDonald’s often pulls when it’s in trouble.
It’s been a tough year for McDonald’s. It recently had an E. coli outbreak linked to the sliced onions used in its Quarter Pounder, which was just icing on the cake after several quarters of lackluster sales. Consumers turned their back on McDonald’s after the chain raised its prices beyond recognition and the chain is trying to earn back its reputation as value provider by reintroducing value meals.
One appeal of the McRib (as if it wasn’t appetizing enough!) is the perception of scarcity. There is a McRib tracker dedicated to spotting the sandwich when it’s not available nationwide. The last time McDonald’s brought it back, in October 2022, it called it its "farewell tour," implying it would not return.
One of the company’s biggest headwinds in the past decade has been the rising price of beef caused by low cattle supply. Its response has been pushing more chicken products, which now make up about half of its sales.
So it does stand to reason that perhaps the price of the sandwich’s inputs might be on the McMind. It has been widely noted that McDonald’s usually introduces the McRib — its only pork-based sandwich — when hog futures are low, and that the McRib can be construed as a bit of arbitrage to buy the dip. You be the judge:
