Fast Food Chain To Switch To Healthier Menu – Again.
Fast food fans and online culinary school students looking for a quick fix on late nights will find that some of their favorite guilty pleasures have new neighbors on the McDonald’s menu. Food industry giant McDonald’s, the fast food chain restaurant best known for high calorie counts, everlasting fries and the ever-popular molded pork patty McRib sandwich, is once again altering its image to appeal to a broader, more sophisticated consumer base. In light of the negative press and lagging second quarter profits that have hit the struggling multinational corporation, the company is hoping that the new marketing strategy it is taking will bring consumers back to the golden arches.
Recruiting top-notch chefs
One of the ways McDonald’s is dealing with all the negative press is by recruiting a group of culinary artists to cook for a publicity event aimed to elevate its status within the public’s opinion. These nationally recognized chefs packed up their knife sets and traveled to a location in Tribeca.
Despite the daunting task before them, the chefs took up the challenge to produce tastier, healthier meals made from a list of ingredients found in the McDonald’s pantry. Chef James Tahhan, a Telemundo cooking show star, created a Tortilla Esponola with an apple and cucumber chipotle salad made with McDonald’s chipotle barbecue and honey mustard sauces. Chef Aaron McCargo Jr., the 2008 winner of “The Next Food Network Star,” used the restaurant’s crispy chicken and doused the pieces in chipotle barbecue sauce, applewood smoked bacon and cheddar jack cheese before serving over a crispy hash brown. Chef Dale Talde of “Top Chef” created a Kung Pao chicken appetizer from chicken nuggets and sweet and sour sauce.
Upping the healthy factor
Along with the publicity stunt in New York, the corporation has decided to change its menus to include choices that are lower in salt, fat and sugar, elements that are known to contribute to the country’s skyrocketing obesity rate. In addition, McDonald’s will begin an arduous marketing campaign that will highlight its fruit and vegetable meals and side dishes, egg-white only sandwiches and low-calorie wrap options.
New flavors are popping up to match the healthier choices too. Habanero ranch sauce and rice wine vinegar will make an appearance in the McWrap, showing consumers a different side of McDonald’s.
McDonald’s corporate chef and dietician Jessica Faust,who presented a slow-cooked beef entree with blueberry pomegranate sauce and french fry gnocchi at the event, also spoke on behalf of the company.
“You can find these ingredients in grocery stores and some of the most fine dining in the country,”she told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re helping people understand that it’s food – that’s all it is.”
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