To help turn around declining U.S. sales, McDonald's has reportedly begun testing new breakfast pastries in its San Diego market, according to Bloomberg News.
The world's largest restaurant chain recently began selling new breakfast pastries--raspberry and cinnamon cream-cheese Petite Pastries, also called McCafé Petite Pastries. The pastries are made with real butter and contain either raspberry or cinnamon cream cheese filling.
The San Diego McDonald's website showed that with coffee, two pastries cost $1.29 and without coffee, two pastries cost $1.99.
"It's premature to draw any conclusions from the test," Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for the company said in an email.
McDonald's has not had the best year so far. Bloomberg reported that fast food chain's sales have been slipping and competition is fierce, with rivals offering new menu items and discounts.
McDonald's sales have slip to 303 percent in January, the third straight monthly decline. The chain recently blamed the winter weather as a reason behind declining sales.
McDonald's has tried smaller experiments in order to bring in more customers. McDonald's tried out breakfast pastries, including a cheese danish, banana bread and a vanilla scone, in Massachusetts in 2012. However it was never nationally released.
According to a document laying out the company's 2014 to 2016 U.S. strategy obtained by Bloomberg News, McDonald's is also trying to increasing coffee-driven visits to its stores.
"In the U.S., one of the challenges we have is we have lost some of our customer relevance, and we have lost it across several parts of the day," chief financial officer Pete Bensen said during McDonald's fourth-quarter earnings call. "If we lose relevance in coffee, then we are going to lose the transaction which yields a food purchase, and so we have got to make sure that the food is relevant and that the awareness around McDonald's as a kitchen and a restaurant that cooks and prepares fresh high-quality food is strong and pronounced in our marketing and our messaging."
According to a document laying out the company's 2014 to 2016 U.S. strategy obtained by Bloomberg News, McDonald's is also trying to increasing coffee-driven visits to its stores. McDonald's stores in Britain already sell blueberry muffins and sugar doughnuts.
McDonald's operates approximately 35,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, including more than 14,000 in the United States.
Other chains that have announced changes or upgrades to its breakfast menu include:
- Last week, Dunkin' Donuts released its new Eggs Benedict sandwich. The grab-and-go version of the classic breakfast meal consists of Black Forest ham, egg and Hollandaise sauce substitute on a toasted English muffin.
- Taco Bell announced that it will soon be serving breakfast with items like a waffle taco and a breakfast wrap
- Starbucks has released four new breakfast sandwiches: ham and swiss on a croissant; spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and cheese on ciabatta; egg and cheddar on toast; and a lower-calorie egg white, bacon, and cheese on an English muffin.
- McDonald's also announced that its company is considering extending it breakfast hours beyond 10 a.m.
