McDonald's to Trim Menu Offerings in 2015

OAK BROOK, Ill. — McDonald's Corp. stated Wednesday it will cut the number of menu items it offers in U.S. restaurants and use fewer ingredients in food as it works to speed up service, increase sales and offer personalized options to compete with chains like Subway and Chipotle Mexican Grill, according to a Reuters report.

Menus will have eight fewer food items and five fewer Extra Value Meals starting in January, said McDonald's USA President Mike Andres. New menu boards will feature one Quarter Pounder with Cheese vs. four on the current menu, one Premium Chicken sandwich vs. three and one Snack Wrap vs. three.

The fast food chain is not finished tweaking its menus, Andres added. "There's more to come," he said during a conference call with investors. "We don't need to have a big menu board to offer variety."

Andres also noted that ingredients labels should be shorter and that simplifying ingredients is a large but necessary task. He also suggested that the company might change its use of preservatives, as busy McDonald's restaurants have no need to store food very long. "Why do we have to have preservatives in our food? We probably don't," he said.

The menu changes come as McDonald's faces a continuous slide in sales, having not seen a monthly sales gain in the United States since October 2013. McDonald's is also expanding its customizable Create Your Taste test platform, as CSNews Online previously reported.