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Former McDonald’s corporate chef, Mike Haracz claims the fast food giant is manipulating the taste of its burgers to maximize profits. He alleges McDonald’s tweaks the recipe of their cheaper burgers to be deliberately less appealing, subtly pushing customers towards pricier options.
Haracz worked as a chef for McDonald’s until 2019. He now has a TikTok channel where he discusses everything about the chain. His latest viral video called: ‘Former McDonald’s chef has theory about its regular burgers being bad’ – calls out McDonald’s for making their cheaper burgers taste bad on purpose.
“I’m a former McDonald’s corporate chef and in this conspiracy theory, which I have a variety of information to back up, I think I realized why they made a variety of changes to the bun and burger process because they want the regular burgers the Big Macs, the double cheeseburgers, the McDoubles, to be bad!”
He discussed the recent changes to the burgers and said that he has recently realized why they incorporated these changes in effect ‘sabotaging their own food for its benefit’. These changes being; new ‘fluffier’ buns, a new way of making the beef patty, and using rehydrated onions to name a few.
“I think they’ve made a bunch of changes to their core, cheap, affordable, items so that way when you go there—which you probably are gonna go there anyway—you’re like, man that cheeseburger just doesn’t hit like it used to, I’m gonna get the Quarter Pounder.”
Tampering with core menu items like burgers could backfire, damaging trust and potentially leading to a decline in sales…which we’ve already seen from McDonald’s recent earnings report. And subsequent conjuring of the $5 Value Meal.
Haracz further pointed out that McDonald’s is in the business of making money and wouldn’t jeopardize the goal by offering better and cheaper food. Which could explain why the $5 Value Meal will only be live for just one month.
“So they have been making a lot of money by selling the more profitable items. Why would they wanna make the cheaper things better? So that more people would eat them? Because then they would be making less money.“
A plethora of customers have also noticed the same quality decline, and difference in taste of the updated burgers and especially the thinner patties. So thin, you can see through them.
Towards the end of the video, he adds: “…this is why I think they are just changing things around and making the regular cheeseburger too expensive for you to buy, not a value, and not as good, cause you’re gonna trade up to the more expensive thing, making McDonald’s more money.”
Is Haracz on the money with this conspiracy theory? Many of his viewers agreed with him and in fact, pledged that future McDonald’s trips are out of the question.
Customers will be paying more attention than ever to the taste and value of their McDonald’s burgers in the coming weeks, as the fast food giant faces pressure to downsize their prices and deliver bigger portions. Will they listen or go for the same high profit margin they’ve been targeting over the past few years, regardless of if customers are happy or not?
