McDonald’s is slashing its combo meal prices after customers had a beef with the burger giant’s rising prices.
For eight popular combo meals, the fast-food chain will offer prices 15 percent below the sum of the items sold separately, the Wall Street Journal first reported. A combo meal that now costs $10 could soon cost $8.50.
“Customers are telling us they need more of the everyday value and affordability that defines the McDonald’s brand,” Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA, told the company after it released a quarterly report this month, according to the outlet.
Customers will see the changes as soon as this fall. In September, McDonald’s will offer $5 Sausage Egg McMuffin and $8 Big Mac meals; in November, Sausage, Egg and Cheese McGriddle and 10-piece Chicken McNuggets meals will go for $5 and $8.
To add to the delicious new prices, McDonald’s is reintroducing the “Extra Value Meals” branding, which includes $5 breakfast and $8 Big Mac and McNugget combo-meal specials, the Journal reported. The chain first launched “Extra Value Meals” — bargain combo meals — in 1991, but stopped marketing them as such during the Covid-19 pandemic, the outlet reported.
The Independent has asked McDonald’s for more information.
The move comes amid complaints from customers about the fast-food chain’s rising prices. A viral 2023 tweet showed a Big Mac combo meal costing nearly $18, rocking the internet. The company called that price tag “an exception” but the complaints have continued to roll in across social media.
“McDonald’s used to be the escape when rent was due and payday was far, one X user groaned earlier this month. “Now a ‘value meal’ is $14 and the value is gone…When people can’t even afford McDonald’s, the economy is already broken.”
Another reminisced last week: “Remember when McDonald’s used to be cheap?”
Yet another expressed disappointment, writing this month: “How is a medium french fry at McDonald’s $3.39? Geez, that’s ridiculous.”
“$26.60 for a breakfast for two at McDonald’s?” another wrote, adding 16 question marks. “INSANITY!!! This is Trump and Elon’s America!”
While President Donald Trump and his former head of the Department of Government Efficiency may not be entirely to blame for the climbing prices, McDonald’s first quarter earnings report showed a dip in sales, which fast-food chain executives chalked up to “economic uncertainty.”
Sales grew during the second quarter, but the fast-food giant noticed a decline in low-income diners. “There is a lot of anxiety and unease with that low-income consumer,” Kempczinski said during a call this month, citing tariffs and a slowdown in real income growth.
“The single biggest driver of what shapes a consumer’s overall perception of McDonald’s value is the menu board,” he added. McDonald’s combo meals priced at $10 or more could be deterring lower-income customers.
The average large Big Mac meal costs $10.53, according to The Journal. But that price tag depends on the location, with the prices range from $5.69 to $18.99, according to data seen by the outlet from market-research firm Technomic.
To help appeal to these customers, the chain debuted a new $5 meal deal last as part of its “McValue” menu.
McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden at the time attributed the deal as driving traffic “particularly with low-income consumers, successfully growing traffic share with this group for the first time in over a year.”
