McDonald's has generally not succeeded with its most outrageous menu offerings.
Nearly every time it has diverted from its core menu, the results have generally been bad. The chain failed with premium burgers, McPizza remains a punchline, and the McDonald's (MCD) spaghetti dinner is best left unremembered.
The chain has managed to captivate customers with the bizarre McRib sandwich, which comes to and leaves its menu, but that pork-scraps offering has been a rare hit.
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Last year the chain also had a surprise hit with its viral Grimace Shake. It wasn't that customers loved the taste of the shake; instead, its purple color lent itself well to social media and became a sensation. Yet the company has not followed up on the marketing opportunity.
In recent months, McDonald's did offer a new version of its McCrispy chicken sandwich as well as a sauce made famous in the anime world.
In the U.S. McDonald's has focused its innovation mostly on offering deals that drive customers to its app. That, however, is not true in the rest of the world, where the chain has continued to innovate.
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McDonald's adds a new take on a classic dessert
Aside from ice cream and its McFlurries, McDonald's has a very limited dessert menu. The chain has easily forgettable cookies and its beloved Apple Pie. On rare occasions it has offered seasonal pies, but usually they're just the regular pie with a new filling.
It's exciting when the chain offers a limited-time-offer pie, but the chain has rarely done anything all that surprising. That's not the case in Japan, though, where the latest pie to hit its menu turns an American comfort good classic on its head.
The chain introduced the Maple Butter Hotcake Pie to its menu in Japan on April 24. It's part of the Kissa Mac series, which was inspired by Japanese retro coffeehouses. Basically, it's a mashup of the chain's classic pie and its hotcakes.
"This new sweet is like a pancake turned into a pie, adding a crunchy twist to the usually soft and fluffy mouth feel," Sora News 24 reported.
The website had a reporter try the pie.
"Picking it up in one hand, this seemed thicker and heavier than a regular apple pie, but that’s to be expected, given that there are three types of filling inside it — maple syrup sauce, salted butter sauce, and pancake batter," Sora News 24 reported.
McDonald's relies on the basics
McDonald's continues to be a global-growth story in a challenging operating environment. The fast-food chain saw a 9% increase in global comparable sales while also reporting a 3% increase in customer count.
CEO Chris Kempczinski credited some of that growth to the chain focusing on delivering the best possible experience for customers.
"Focusing on the fundamentals of creating an exceptional customer experience has delivered operational improvements, improved service times, and increased customer satisfaction across almost all of our major markets," he said during the company's fourth-quarter-earnings call.
Kempczinski also highlighted a new system being implemented at its restaurants called "Ready on Arrival."
"The restaurants can take full advantage of Ready on Arrival. In addition to a national average 60-second reduction in wait times for customers that pick up curbside in our restaurant, or higher customer satisfaction in these transactions, Ready on Arrival benefits the crew by giving the right information to the right person in the restaurant to deliver food faster and hotter," he said.
McDonald's has been testing the new system in the Salt Lake City market.
"We've reduced complexity and stress in restaurants, and Salt Lake franchisees are driving higher levels of guest count growth and franchisee cash flow," he added.
