Sales are falling between the big yellow arches, and fast food as we know it is turning over a new leaf as a new generation takes the wheel.?
Head over to the website of McDonald?s, and you?ll be greeted with this statement:
?Since 1955, we?ve been proud to serve the world some of its favorite food.?
But are fast-food burgers and fries really our favorite food these days? After the company introduced the ?Create Your Taste? program this week ? where you can customize your burger by choosing from ingredients such as guacamole, grilled mushrooms, and (in some locations) Gouda cheese ? people took to social media this week with photos of lettuce buns, a reminder that even with a new way to order food, people are still trying to make the meals themselves healthier.
The numbers paint a not-so-pretty picture for the fast-food giant. McDonald?s same-store U.S. sales also dropped 4 percent in February and 2.2 percent in May. And just last week, the company reported that its global comparable sales fell yet again ? making for unhappy (once-thriving) franchise owners.
What?s to blame? Perhaps it could be changing consumer tastes ? namely, those of Millennials, my generation, born roughly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. ?As Millennials, we are more skeptical of the fast-food category than any other generation before us ? which is shown through our purchasing pattern, but also in how we are talking about the industry,? Jason Dorsey, a Millennial researcher at the Center for Generational Kinetics (and a Millennial himself), tells Yahoo Health.
In fact, Yahoo Health polled other Millennials to find their opinions about McDonald?s ? and while the results were admittedly unscientific, they pointed largely to the idea that the fast-food giant has a bad rep to shake. (Respondents noted that they perceived the food to be something reserved for long car rides; unhealthy and cheap; and with unclear ingredients.)
Industry experts aren?t shocked by these sentiments. Born in the age of technology, we?ve managed to impact almost every industry we?ve touched ? and the food industry is no exception, says Dorsey.
Read more at?YAHOO
