McDonald’s unveils US CosMc's trial and global expansion

Image source, McDonald's

McDonald's has announced the details of its new retro-style restaurant idea, CosMc's, which would operate in the same market segment as Starbucks.

Its pilot, focusing on hot and cold speciality drinks, will open this month near Chicago, and it aims to be in 10 locations by the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, the fast food giant plans to open about 10,000 McDonald's sites globally by 2027, with many in China.

The expansion would boost the number of its stores to about 50,000.

The first CosMc's is due to open in Bolingbrook, Illinois, near the fast food giant's headquarters, later this week, with about 10 more to open in Texas next year.

It will serve a menu that seems to be squarely aimed at people with a very sweet tooth, selling items such as Churro Frappe - a kind of Spanish doughnut - and S'Mores Cold Brew - s'mores are biscuits, chocolate and marshmallows.

There will also be a small number of McDonald's staple food items on the menu such as Egg McMuffins.

The concept is the fast food chain's latest effort to crack the lucrative coffee market, especially in the US, where more than 60% of the country drinks at least one cup a day.

In 2008, with an eye on Starbucks, it announced a plan to bring baristas and espresso machines to its US restaurants, which never caught on. Another push about a decade ago also faltered.

McDonald's boss Chris Kempczinski emphasised that investors shouldn't get too excited about CosMc's but did say it could go global.

"It's not worth our time to develop an idea that will only work in one market," he said.

McDonald's already has a coffee and snack chain called McCafe, which only serves coffee and sweets, cakes or pastries.

It has had its greatest success outside of the US, ranking as Australia's top-selling brew.

The name for the new brand comes from a McDonaldland mascot, an alien from outer space that craves its food, which appeared in adverts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Its new venture CosMc's promises customers the chance to make "otherworldly" drinks creations, customising their beverages with popping boba bubbles, or flavoured syrups.

The play for the caffeinated drinks market comes as rising prices have drawn shoppers to cheaper fast food options such as McDonald's, for a treat.

At the same time, legions of social media users on apps like TikTok have jumped on the trend of posting their own unique drink combinations created at coffee shops using different creams, sprinkles, syrups and more.

The fast food giant also announced plans for what could be its "fastest ever" period of growth for its traditional burger business.

The latest expansion includes 900 new restaurants in the US, 1,900 in international markets where it operates its own restaurants, and 7,000 in its international licensed markets.

More than half of the 7,000 additions will be in China, which is the chain's second-largest market. It recently struck a deal to have greater control over its business in the region.

The firm's chief executive, Chris Kempczinski, has said China could eventually become McDonald's largest market.

But the company also said it was seeing an impact of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The BBC was told that workers, some as young as 17, were being groped and harassed almost routinely.

In response, McDonald's said it had "fallen short" and it "deeply apologised".

Last month, the UK boss of McDonald's told MPs the fast-food chain was receiving one or two sexual harassment claims a week following the investigation.