McDonald’s McTricks Aren’t Working

McDonald’s McTricks Aren’t Working

A McDonald's restaurant is pictured in Encinitas, California September 9, 2014.   REUTERS/Mike Blake
MIKE BLAKE
By Millie Dent

Turns out warm buns aren’t the solution to McDonald’s financial woes.

The burger giant announced Thursday that its sales slide continued in the second quarter, with same store sales falling 0.7 percent globally and by 2 percent in the U.S. Quarterly revenues dropped 10 percent to $6.5 billion, though without currency effects from a strong dollar they would have climbed 1 percent.

The results were good enough to top Wall Street’s expectations, but they showed again just how far McDonald’s has to go to win back customers.

Related: The 11 Worst Fast Food Restaurants in America

The fast food chain blamed the admittedly “disappointing” results on the failure of its products and promotions to draw customers to its stores as anticipated.

New CEO Steve Easterbrook, who took over in March, has promised to revamp the restaurant chain and improve sales by catering to consumers who prefer fresh, high quality food.

McDonald’s continues to try a variety of promotions and menu changes to win back diners. It recently started offering a double cheeseburger and fries for $2.50 as a summer deal and rolled out an “artisan grilled chicken sandwich.” It has also, among other things, enlarged its quarter pounder, tested a new breakfast bowl full of kale, rolled out flavored hot coffee in some locations and even tested a lobster roll in New England restaurants. And it upped the toasting time for its hamburger buns by 5 seconds.

So far, though, the new deals and menu options have failed to entice diners.

Related: 9 Ways McDonald’s Wants to Get You Excited About Its Food Again

Easterbrook did acknowledge that changing McDonalds’ image would take time, but he said Thursday that the company is “seeing early signs of momentum.”

The company will begin to offer all-day breakfast, which already accounts for 25 percent of the company’s sales. And it is continuing to simplify its menu options to lower costs.

Analysts wonder if such changes will be enough to boost consumer appetites for McDonald’s and how the company is going to reposition its brand. As Thursday earnings report made clear, introducing a younger, hip hamburglar isn’t going to cut it.

Sweet, Sour, Salty and...Fat? Scientists Add a New Basic Taste

4) The Habit Burger Grill
Flickr/Sean Carter
By Millie Dent

The thousands of taste buds on a human tongue each contain as many as 100 taste receptors. The interaction between those receptors and the chemicals in our food determine the taste of that hamburger or salad you’re having for lunch.

Our sense of taste has long been broken into four basic categories — sour, sweet, salty and bitter. A fifth basic taste was added more recently: umami, which means “delicious” in Japanese but refers to a meaty or savory flavor sensation. Now researchers claim there’s a sixth basic taste.

Scientists at Purdue University have published a new study in the journal Chemical Sense that they say provides evidence that chemicals called nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) — in other words, fat — causes a taste sensation that is different from the other five tastes. The researchers have proposed that the new taste be referred to as “oleogustus.” “Oleo” is the root word for oily or fatty in Latin and “gustus” means taste.

Related: The 11 Worst Fast Food Restaurants in America

The researchers emphasize that they are talking about a taste, not just the creamy mouth feel you get from eating a rich piece of meat or a dish loaded in butter.

The fat that delivers that creamy, smooth feeling is a triglyceride, made up of three different fatty acids, they explain. Oleogustus — a gag-inducing taste on its own, but much more appetizing in combination with other flavors — comes from only one of those fatty acids that breaks off from the larger molecule in the food or as you’re chewing.

This finding has the potential to generate big changes in the food industry. Understanding the taste component of fat can do more than add to our knowledge of how our brain and digestive system interact. It may also help the food industry create more appealing, and potentially healthier, products.

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Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ Hat Is Already Sold Out

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a news conference near the U.S.-Mexico border outside of Laredo
© Rick Wilking / Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg

Maybe it’s just another lesson in the art of the deal.

Donald Trump had the Internet flipping out — again — on his visit to the Mexican border last week by covering his signature orange coif with an ill-fitting white cap emblazoned with his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” — a slogan made famous by Ronald Reagan but recently trademarked by Trump.

Related: Trump Just Showed Why His Campaign Is Doomed

While Trump’s campaign website doesn’t yet have a store, the hats quickly went on sale at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, a destination for tourists and some Fifth Avenue shoppers. The hats are available for $20 in a choice of red, blue or the white version Trump wore.

Or make that were available. As of Monday, the initial order of the Republican presidential candidate’s caps were sold out. A salesperson said the store expected to have them back in stock by the end of the week. In the meantime, the store still had plenty of $15 “Make America Great Again” t-shirts for sale. And if you’re really desperate to get your hands on Trump’s new lid, there are plenty of knockoffs popping up online.

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5 Cities with the Most Credit Card Debt

By Suelain Moy

Why is the Lone Star State racking up so much debt? Its two largest cities—Dallas and Houston/Fort Worth make the list of the cities with the most credit card debt, and San Antonio comes in as No. 1.

The new study from CreditCards.com used credit report data from Experian to compare the average credit card debt in the 25 largest U.S. metro areas with each area’s median income. It assumed that 15 percent of a person's monthly income would be spent on paying down credit card debt.

The analysis claims it would take San Antonio residents with median incomes of $27,491 a full 16 months to pay off an average of $4,880, making monthly payments of $344 a month. By comparison, a resident of San Francisco making $42,613 a year would pay off $4,393 in credit card debt with nine monthly payments of $533 per month.

The cities with the highest credit card debt burdens were:

  1. San Antonio
  2. Dallas/Fort Worth
  3. Atlanta
  4. Miami/Fort Lauderdale
  5. Houston

Related: 5 Reasons to Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt Now

The metro areas with the highest debt don’t necessarily have the highest debt burdens when adjusted for income. For example, Washington, D.C. has the nation’s highest average credit card debt at $5,046, but since it also has the highest median income in the nation, its debt burden is lower. By applying 15 percent of their paychecks, residents can pay off that debt in 10 months.

The cities with the lowest credit card debt burdens were:

  1. New York City
  2. Minneapolis/St. Paul
  3. Washington, D.C.
  4. Boston
  5. San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose

Matt Schulz, senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com, points out that there isn’t much difference between the city with the highest credit card debt, Washington, D.C. ($5,046), and the city with the lowest credit card debt, the Riverside-San Bernardino area ($4,137), but there is a big difference in income. A higher income means that debts can be paid off more quickly. “It really is all about earnings,” Schulz says. “People are using their credit cards whether they live in the biggest city in the country or they live in the 25th biggest city in the country.”

While most folks won’t be able to increase their income that dramatically, there are still steps they can take to make sure they’re tackling their credit card debt in the most effective way possible.

Related: How to Defuse Exploding Consumer Credit Debt

His advice to consumers? “Absolutely, positively pay more than the minimum on your credit card balance every month.” And the next best thing? “If you can’t pay the full balance, then you have to pay off more than the minimum.”

Schulz also recommends calling the credit card issuer and asking if you can get better terms. “It’s certainly worth a call,” says Schulz. “We did a study last year that showed that 65 percent of people who asked for a lower interest rate got a lower APR.” The same study said that 86 percent of people who asked for a waiver of a late payment fee were successful in getting the charge removed.

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The 10 Friendliest Cities in the U.S.

It seems that Honolulu is home to much more than just beaches and hula skirts. According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, visitor spending rose 15.6 percent to 1.1 billion in October, which is good news for Hawaii’s largest city and state capital, home to
iStockphoto
By Suelain Moy

The friendliest city for visitors is Honolulu, according to more than 6,400 respondents in a newly released poll by Travelzoo.

Survey takers were asked to pick the cities, states and countries where they felt the most welcome, could easily ask for directions, and get dining recommendations. New York City came in second, followed by New Orleans.

Last year was a record-breaking year for tourism, and the numbers confirm the popularity of these destinations for travelers. In 2014, 8.3 million visitors came to the Aloha State, with total visitor expenditures estimated at $14.7 billion. On average, 205,044 visitors are in the state of Hawaii on any given day.

Related: They’re Leaving Las Vegas: Fewer I Do’s in Last Decade

New York City, where tourism also hit a record high in 2014 with 56.4 million visitors streaming into the Big Apple, claimed the second spot in the poll.

Third place New Orleans has 9.52 million visitors and tourism spending of $6.81 billion in 2014. Fourth place Las Vegas also broke tourism records with 40 million visitors last year, thanks to renovated and rebranded resorts and direct flights from Canada and Mexico. Boston rounded out the top five, with a total of 16,250,000 international and domestic visitors in 2014.

Here are the top 10 friendly cities:

  1. Honolulu
  2. New York
  3. New Orleans
  4. Las Vegas
  5. Boston
  6. San Diego
  7. San Francisco
  8. Charleston, S.C.
  9. Chicago
  10. Seattle

Travelzoo also ranked states for friendliness, with warm climes dominating the list. In the top spot was Florida, followed by California and Hawaii. New York and Maine were the only states from the Northeast to make the list.

  1. Florida
  2. California
  3. Hawaii
  4. New York
  5. Texas
  6. South Carolina
  7. Maine
  8. Georgia
  9. Washington
  10. Arizona

In Europe, Amsterdam, London, and Dublin were considered the friendliest cities to visit, with Italy and Ireland seen as the friendliest countries.

Why ‘In a Relationship’ on Facebook Means More Than You Think

iStockphoto
By Millie Dent

Worried about your relationship with your significant other? A quick look at your Facebook profile can tell you a lot about how you’re doing as a couple. 

Listing yourself as “in a relationship” with your partner, posting photos of you and your partner together, and posting on your partner’s wall are all signs of a committed relationship, at least among college-age couples, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

The study looked at 180 undergraduates who were in romantic relationships and asked them a number of questions about their relationship and looked at their Facebook profiles. Six months later, the researchers returned and asked the students whether they were still in that relationship.   

The study results suggest that displaying a public commitment on Facebook, a highly public platform, is correlated with more enduring relationships between couples. These public displays of devotion actually help cement relationships as they develop over time. 

However, not all couple-related activity on Facebook is good for a relationship. The number of mutual friends each couple had and the number of partner-initiated wall posts were negatively correlated with relationship commitment. In addition, joint affiliations, such as attending the same events or being in the same Facebook groups, was not associated with commitment. 

As annoying as couples who broadcast their relationship all over Facebook might be, they’re more likely to be in it for the long haul. So consider blocking them if you’ve had enough of the online PDA, because as they study suggest, there’s probably going to be a whole lot more of it.