How McDonalds Is Building a Better Burger

McDonalds is beefing up the burger competition by using fresh beef in its Quarter-Pounder and Signature Crafted Recipe burgers. Up until now, McDonald’s has used frozen beef in all its burgers; while one of its competitors — Wendy’s — touts its “always fresh, never frozen” ground beef. But is the new burger any better?

The folks at the Golden Arches say that a year was spent developing the cooking process and fine-tuning the grills. So far, about 3,500 McDonald’s in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Nashville, Orlando Memphis, and Raleigh have transitioned to the new fresh beef system. (There are about 14,000 locations across the U.S., so they’ve still got a long way to go.)

I was invited to the Woods Cross McDonald’s to watch a fresh Quarter Pounder being cooked. OK, I realize that if you’re one of the millions of people who flipped burgers at McDonald’s sometime during your youth, it’s not that big of a thrill to hang out in the kitchen. But it was interesting to see the organized system back there.

And, I got to taste-test one of the burgers for myself.  Truthfully, I’m not the best judge for this. First, when it comes to burgers, I’m usually more interested in the toppings, and how they enhance or detract from the flavor and texture of the overall burger. But the toppings, condiments and a fancy bun can only take you so far if the beef is cardboard-y, rubbery or sawdust-textured.  I’ve heard that cooking fresh beef as opposed to frozen helps with the texture.

Secondly, I’m OK with frozen foods, especially when it comes to food safety.  When food has to be shipped or kept awhile, bacteria continues to grow on fresh, refrigerated food. It stops growing if the food is frozen. So when it comes to handling fresh beef, you have to be pretty strict about refrigeration and holding temperatures for food safety.  We were told that McDonald’s had to do a lot of fine-tuning with its process to make sure of this.

“Fresh” and “natural” are probably the biggest food buzzwords today. McDonald’s has taken a few steps in the right direction by removing artificial ingredients from Chicken McNuggets and scrambled eggs, and high fructose corn syrup from its buns.

And being able to customize your food is another big trend, noted when McDonald’s test-marketed the “Create-your-taste” burgers here in Utah. You could  customize your burger with a long list of upscale toppings like guacamole, grilled mushrooms, shaved Parmesan, and sautéed onions. Since my grandkids love Mickey D’s playgrounds, I would often order Happy Meals for them, and a “designer” burger from the kiosk for myself. I thought these were a definite step up, because as I mentioned before, I like to jazz up my burger with different topping combinations. Yes, you can do that at places like Five Guys, but there’s the  playground factor.  When you’ve got kids and the weather is too cold, too hot or too rainy to play outdoors, that playground is a huge plus.

But Create Your Taste was dropped because the burgers (which used frozen patties) took 5-7 minutes to cook, and they couldn’t be done in the drive-thru, where McDonald’s does the majority of its business. I’m guessing that all those individual ingredients complicated the staff’s highly organized system. Also with the price of roughly $6 to $10, they were pretty expensive for the McDonald’s core customer base.  I mean, people go out for a  “gourmet” burger, McDonald’s is not the first place they consider.

So McDonald’s went back to the drawing board and came up with fresh beef for its Quarter-Pounders and Double Quarter-Pounders, and replaced the “Create A Taste” long list of toppings with a few shorter, predictable combinations, called Signature Craft.

For my taste-test, I ordered the Signature Craft Sweet Barbecue Bacon (apple wood-smoked bacon, barbecue sauce, white cheddar and grilled and crispy onions). At the Woods Cross store, you could also choose from Pico Guacamole and Signature Sriracha.

Back in the kitchen we watched how the clamshell-type grill (like a giant waffle iron, but flat) cooks a fresh beef patty on both sides at once, giving a nice sear in 72 to 80 seconds.

The patties are cooked-to-order — they don’t  go on the grill until the order is placed. Guests are supposed to get their burger within a minute of it coming off the grill, so that it’s hot and juicy.  

The transition to fresh beef came from listening to customers, according to Aleks Hansen. He works with his father-in-law Bob Roetzel, who owns 19 McDonald’s locations in Davis County, City Creek, Draper, Provo, Payson, Springville, Wells and Wendover.  “The burger is the key to who we are,” Hansen said. “The transition to fresh beef is really important.”

While we were there, I asked some of the regional management about the shortage of food service employees.  More people are eating out, and nationwide, there aren’t enough restaurant workers to go around. Some of  McDonald’s initiatives to attract and retain employees include at least $10 per hour in pay. Secondly, after 90 days on the job, they are eligible for a college tuition program, which many employees have used. And in January, ALL employees began accruing paid leave.

I liked the texture of the burger that I tasted. But the Sweet Barbecue Bacon burger is bathed in a lot of barbecue sauce, so it was hard to gauge how juicy the burger actually was one its own.  I think a regular quarter-pounder, ordered without a lot of sauce, would probably give you a better idea of whether this is a better burger or not.  (And I guess that gives me an excuse to go and get another one!)

Keep in mind that the fresh beef is only used in Quarter-Pounders. If you’re getting a Big Mac or something off the value menu, you will have to settle for frozen.

Also, they are more expensive than the value menu, as the Sweet Barbecue Bacon burger that I tried was around $5, and that’s without fries or drink. In checking the nutritional values, that same burger is 700 calories….again, without fries or drink. So if these were a daily indulgence, they could be hard on your wallet and your waist.

Burger lovers, I’d like to hear your opinions. For those of you who prefer a more upscale burger, such as Five Guys or The Habit Burger, do you think McDonald’s can lure you in with this fresh-beef burger? Have you tasted it, and what did you think?