Follow us on Twitter
Nine Mcdonald’s Products That Actually Flopped
McDonald’s is a giant success in the food industry. Still, not everything Ray Kroc touches turns to gold. Here are some of the Golden Arches’ products that didn’t turn out to be golden after all.
When it comes to fast food success, nothing beats McDonald’s. They seem to have found the magic touch for capturing that taste buds of people all over the world, even in countries that don’t eat beef, like India, or those that prefer rice, like the entire Asian region.
But contrary to popular belief, not everything sold under the Golden Arches sells. Here are nine true-to-life McDonald’s products that actually flopped!
1. Hulaburger. The big tragedy of this one was that it was such a favorite of Ray Kroc. He invented it himself to cater to Roman Catholics who avoided meat on Fridays. So Kroc took the meat out of the cheeseburger and replaced it with – guess what? – a pineapple! It was tested in 1963 and, well, it failed dismally. Eventually, McDonald’s decided to promote the Filet-o-Fish instead.
2. Arch Deluxe. After years of selling to children, McDonald’s decided in 1996 to try to sell to adults. So they designed a very “mature” burger, with a quarter pound beef patty, red onions, lettuce, tomato, and a special honey-mustard sauce, all sandwiched inside a potato roll. For a little extra charge, you could be more chic and have peppered bacon added to the pack.
Well, apparently, we McDonald’s lovers aren’t a very chic group after all. The mature honey-mustard sandwiched flopped, while the cheeseburger lives on.
3. Fried Roast Beef Sandwiches. Ooh, roast beef! Sounds good, huh? Can you imagine how something like that could flop? Well, technically, it didn’t. It’s just that it cost so much to produce, it was bringing the company to the brink of a financial disaster. It didn’t flop for the customers. It flopped for McDonald’s.
4. McPizza. In the late 80s and early 90s, the McPizza would have made McDonald’s the ultimate one-stop shop for fastfood. There was just one problem: Pizza isn’t very fast. For people used to zipping in and out of McDonald’s, the waiting time for the pizza to be cooked and served just was too much of a change. Hey, if I wanted to wait, I would have gone to Pizza Hut, right?
5. The Dinner Menu. Tested during the early 1990s, the Dinner Menu featured entrees of pizza, spaghetti, fettucine alfredo, lasagna, and roasted chicken. For side dishes, it had vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy. And for dessert, there was brownie a la mode. For the same reason why the Arch Deluxe didn’t click, the Dinner Menu also flopped. I guess class and fast food just don’t mix very well. Give me back my Happy Meal!
6. Chicken Fajitas. This was a small tortilla pocket with grilled chicken and vegetables. Considering how much McDonald’s patrons love Big Macs, I can’t imagine why McDonald’s would think we’d be satisfied with such a tiny thing as this.
7. Salad Shakers. One of McDonald’s efforts to offer fast and healthy food, the salad shakers started out a huge success – until people got tired of scraping the dressing off the covers of their shakers.
8. McAfrica. This pita bread sandwich with beef and veggies didn’t taste bad at all, so I’ve heard. It was just unlucky that it was released in 2002, at a time when Africa was in famine and a lot of people felt it was adding insult to injury – perhaps it would have fared better if it had been differently named.
9. McLean Deluxe. This is the great McDonald’s irony: People criticize it for being unhealthy, but when it comes up with a healthy product, people refuse to buy! Released in 1991, the McLean Deluxe was as disgustingly healthy as a sandwich could get: Ninety-one percent fat free, it replaced fat with water and used seaweed extract to bind the water to the beef. Well people didn’t like the new fat-free burger because, after all, it’s fat that makes burgers taste so good. The healthy McDonald’s burger flopped, which just goes to show how health conscious we McDonald’s eaters really are!
——————-
Now for a list of McDonald’s products that did sell, you might want to check out this link:
McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World. So you think you know the McDonald’s menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald’s international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.
Liked it
30 Comments
For as much as I loathe Micheal Moore films, “Supersize Me” was amazing, scary and very, very telling. I was most impressed.
-thestickman
Although Im not a Mc lover, with the scale of advertising, you tend to hear of most of their products. I hadn’t heard of any of these before.In some cases thats not really suprising. A pineapple sandwich? No thanks. Good Article
Very cool topic. Nicely done. I do remember some of these.
nice topic though I believe Mcdo Phils. offers a different set of menu nevertheless this is very informative.
I really liked the salad shakers! But I didn’t eat the salad dressing.
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
WOW! This is very interesting. I only knew of one in the list.
Fun article. I didn’t even know these existed.
I miss the McDLT. “The hot stays hot and the cool stays cool,” or whatever it was…
Interesting article about the arches. Thank you.
WOW! I hadn’t heard of most of these and I loved your other article on menu items around the world. Awesome.
I miss the pizza!
thestickman, it wasn’t a Michael Moore film… smartypants
That’s right. Morgan Spurlock was the person behind Supersize Me.
Hi, Beatrice, how are you?
This is quite the tasty article, thanks for sharing.
oh man, the mcpizza was sooo good. crust was fantastic. wish you could still get that.
There is one flop on there that’s actually still around. We have the chicken fajitas in Canada and they do pretty well. They sell them in pairs now, rather than singley for the meal deals.
I miss the dinner menu, it was good.
I agree with Chloe! the Pizza was great. I don’t remember it taking long, though. We used to get it through the drive through and it was still quicker than the nuggets. Oh well, I guess some impatient people blew it!
i want the pizza back now!
I LOVED the chicken fajitas would travel to get um!!!! they arent served anymore in NH
It is a very nice article, did not realise there were such a list of Mcdonald’s products, I have no chance to even try them before they were flopped.
Chicken fajitas and salad shakers…what a walk down memory lane for me!!
I didn’t care about the salad shakers…seemed a bit messy and all…but I used to buy the chicken fajitas frequently because even though they were on the small size, so was the price! I just stopped buying them when it seemed that they were getting smaller and thinner while the price remained the same!
i love the salad shakers! lol
The Arch Deluxe was my favorite thing ever from McDonalds. Those bastards!!!
Morgan Spurlock. He did “Supersize Me’. Not Michael Moore.
Ah, I remember 4 of those. And I must say out of them the Pizza was my favorite. I was crazy about that pizza. It tasted so good and was a nice change from a greasy burger. You could get small pizza\’s and big pizza\’s at ours. And to the person above mentioning the McDLT, they rocked!!!!!
But more than anything I just would like the pizza back!!!!!! lol
What a great article. You should really put up some more content.
I remember every one of those. Then again I live in Test City Central aka Columbus Ohio. Everything that ever made it to a fast food menu used to get tested here. You missed McFriedChicken. I don’t think that was the real name of it but they tried (several times) to do the KFC bit at Micky’Ds. Another one was the McRib, one of my wife’s favs.
The McLean Deluxe often wasn’t. One of the TV news shows did an exposé and it turns out that 80% of the time they just used a normal hamburger patty. This was done by managers at various McDonald’s due to the lower cost of a regular patty.
Well, the McRib did flopped, they do serve them in Hong Kong from time to time as ’special limited time offer’…
Ide like to try this pizza everyone is so excited about.