McDonald's recently announced the start of the "2025 Value Year" at its first "Fan Conference" held in Shenzhen. As a leading enterprise in the fast food industry, McDonald's move also reflects that the fast food industry will continue to "roll up" its value in 2025.
At the same time as launching four great value projects in 2025, such as Da Bao Kou Fu and 1+1 at will, McDonald's also released the "Five Trends of Young People's Catering Consumption", including "Reverse Comparison, More Value": Consumers want to spend every penny wisely, focusing on the cost-effectiveness and multi-dimensional experience of catering consumption; In addition, consumers oppose clich é s and pursue simplicity; Rejecting cumbersome and complex promotional methods, pursuing transparent and direct consumer experiences, and placing greater emphasis on spiritual satisfaction.
Under the new market trends and consumer demands, we hope to further leverage McDonald's system advantages and scale advantages in supply chain, operational system, and digital empowerment, and create diversified consumption scenarios based on high-quality food, "said Zhang Jiayin, CEO of McDonald's China
Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng believes that in the past three years, the consumption thinking and behavior of Chinese consumers have undergone significant changes. While pursuing personal value and high-quality service systems, they pay more attention to product cost-effectiveness.
Not just McDonald's. Since 2024, some top fast food brands have directly lowered prices on their products during promotional periods, while others have launched some discounted meal packages.
For example, in August of this year, Burger King China launched the "Signature Burger, 9.9 yuan per week" campaign, during which Burger King will release a high-quality burger worth 9.9 yuan every week. In February of this year, KFC launched "designated burger coupons" in some cities, with an average purchase price of 10 yuan per burger.
In addition, both McDonald's and KFC have lowered their delivery fees in 2024, hoping to become affordable in all aspects, not just the food itself.
In the view of Tang Junzhang, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King, promotions during the consumption upgrade period are symbolically "discounted" on the basis of high unit prices, while now the promotional prices given to consumers by catering companies have already disregarded costs. Especially for Western style chain fast food that originally had a low average order value, the prices after the big promotion are even lower than the cost of cooking at home.
In the structure of China's catering market, fast food occupies the first category "throne". The 2024 Report on the Development Trends of China's Fast Food Industry shows that in the first two quarters of this year, the scale of fast food restaurants was nearly 3.827 million, accounting for 48.0%. At the end of last year, the fast food market underwent a drastic reshuffle, with a rapid decline in the number of stores. In the first half of this year, the opening rate was higher than the closing rate, and the store size slowly stabilized after hitting bottom.
The report points out that Western fast food consumers are more likely to choose restaurants based on chain restaurants and promotional discounts. If they are satisfied with their meals, they are more likely to engage in repeat purchase behavior; When entering a restaurant to order, more consideration is given to whether the price is reasonable and the preference for ingredients.