$3 for a single McDonald's hash brown? Customers are fed up and pushing back

[Texacon]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218660300

dalton99a (80,114 posts)
Wed Feb 7, 2024, 11:44 AM
22
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$3 for a single McDonald's hash brown? Customers are fed up and pushing back
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/business/mcdonalds-prices/index.html

$3 for a single McDonald’s hash brown? Customers are fed up and pushing back
By Allison Morrow, CNN
Updated 10:03 AM EST, Wed February 7, 2024

New York (CNN) — Corporate America may be bumping up against the limit of its power to keep raising prices as consumers in some markets cry uncle.

At McDonald’s, which has repeatedly boasted about its ability to raise menu prices without denting sales, executives are finally acknowledging that customers need a break.

On Monday, as the burger chain reported weaker-than-expected sales at its US stores, CEO Chris Kempczinski addressed McDonald’s “affordability” problem, and indicated the chain would cut prices on some menu items.

“Eating at home has become more affordable,” Kempczinski said.

He’s right: Grocery prices are still high, but they rose just 1.3% overall in 2023, while dining out surged 5.2%, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report.

...

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Grocery prices rose just 1.3% where?

Whose mole is this??   

You force a company to start paying $20/hour then seem incredulous when the prices go up?  Here is an article where it says the price of fast food is outpacing the price of the food it's made with and you can't seem to figure out WHY the prices are going up?   

Interesting thread, but I don't have time to bring it all over.  They can't decide if they want to blame the cost of the food on Bidenomics, or corporate greed.  They point out inflation, but I haven't seen anyone blaming the increase in labor costs.

All that while very few of them want to admit they ever eat fast food.

KC

[enslaved1]

Boy, there is a lot going on in that thread, from food snobbery to blaming "averages" as a Republican propaganda tool.

This tidbit jumped out at me.

David__77 (22,974 posts)
29. They'll have to figure out how to make food service less labor intensive.
Reply to dalton99a (Original post)
Wed Feb 7, 2024, 01:01 PM

And doing this makes sense. Labor should be expensive.

Evidently David_77 hasn't seen the self service kiosks McDonald's is putting in all over the place.  Several stores around here have one, maybe two cash registers left for people to pay cash after putting in their orders or who refuse to use the screen to order. 

[SVPete]

Labor costs are around 30% of a restaurant's costs. Gooberment arbitrarily boosting the minimum wage from ~$10/hour to ~$15/hour was a 50% increase in a restaurant's labor costs (all employees' hourly rate would be increased, not just those earning less than the new minimum rate). Increasing prices was due to increased costs, not "arrogance".

Food costs are around 35% of a restaurant's costs. Inflation has increased those costs significantly in the past several years (= Biden's years!) (an inflation rate decrease means prices are rising slower, not decreasing!) Increasing prices was due to increased costs, not "arrogance".

Are DU-folk ignorant and stupid enough to think only M among fast food chains has increased prices? A year ago, a friend who is a store manager at a fast-food outlet commented that while their chain had only increased prices ~15%, other fast-food chains had done 30%-35% increases ... that was a year ago.


Welcome to Bidenflation, DU-folk!   

[Old n Grumpy]

29. They'll have to figure out how to make food service less labor intensive.

Like come in and fix it yourself, and bring your own food.

And it’s not only rising labor and food prices it’s overhead in general taxes, insurance rent utilities. It’s all going up somebody has to pay for it.

[SVPete]

...
And it’s not only rising labor and food prices it’s overhead in general taxes, insurance rent utilities. It’s all going up somebody has to pay for it.

Utilities - As in gas and electricity? Yep, that's going up (bet utilities' labor expenses are through the roof, ditto the costs of gooberment reg compliance and the anti-business legal climate).

The P, P of P, P, E? Land and facility costs here in Silicon Valley are insane (gooberment anti-growth policies, taxes, and fees have consequences!). To what degree this is true in other states, I don't know.

Insurance - Between slip-and-fall lawyers, frivolous pay-me-off-to-go-away lawsuits, and DAs who won't enforce theft, vandalism, and assault laws, yeah, bet insurance costs are skyrocketing.

[Old n Grumpy]

All I can say, is thank God for Biden‘s inflation, reduction act. We’ve been in a real mass if it wasn’t for that. 

[jukin]

Minimum wage for the mental giants that "work" fast food is now $20/hr in Peoples Democratic Republic of Kalifornia. That should push the price of hash brown patty to well over $6.

[Airwolf]

The prices I see at the local McD's are around the same prices I saw for the Big Mac at a McD's in Fairbamks Alaska way back in January 1989 when I was sent there by the Army to spend three weeks as part of Brim Frost 89. The reason it cost that much is because of the cost of getting all of the ingredients and the cost of the utilities and what not back then. I can only imagine what it is now. That being said, those idiots over at the DUmp have either short term memory loss or they are just plain fracking stupid. The cost for things were cheaper and going down with the cost of gasoline under $3.00/Gal in most places in the US. Anyone at the Dump care to guess who was making that happen?

[ADsOutburst]

You force a company to start paying $20/hour then seem incredulous when the prices go up?

That seems to be precisely what they believe. The left's version of economics is the equivalent of saying there is not a reaction to every action, or that if the fish jumps, the water doesn't move.

[Old n Grumpy]

$3 for a single McDonald’s hash brown?

Ask the manager if they have a quantity discount, then you can either eat them all and up your cholesterol or sell them on the black market for a profit

[SVPete]

...
You force a company to start paying $20/hour then seem incredulous when the prices go up? ...
...

DU-folk probably think that franchise owners who graduate from Hamburger University get money-printing machines installed in their rectums instead of a diploma.

[CollectivismMustDie]

DU-folk probably think that franchise owners who graduate from Hamburger University get money-printing machines installed in their rectums instead of a diploma.

I'd bet that many of those chiming in haven't eaten at a mcdonalds in forever anyway.

[SVPete]

I'd bet that many of those chiming in haven't eaten at a mcdonalds in forever anyway.

We usually stop of at an M for breakfast on trips to SoCal, maybe once a year (often in Paso Robles). As for burgers, I don't know if I've had an M burger this century. In-n-Out and CfA are much better.

[CollectivismMustDie]

We usually stop of at an M for breakfast on trips to SoCal, maybe once a year (often in Paso Robles). As for burgers, I don't know if I've had an M burger this century. In-n-Out and CfA are much better.

Recently, we discovered that DQ burgers aren't too shabby over the typical M and BK and wendys competition.


And their cheese curds are tasty too.

[jukin]

The prices I see at the local McD's are around the same prices I saw for the Big Mac at a McD's in Fairbamks Alaska way back in January 1989 when I was sent there by the Army to spend three weeks as part of Brim Frost 89.

Friend of mine was in Faribanks around the early 90s working a few weeks as a consulting geologist. He has a picture of a sign from a bar there that says:

'WE SCREW THE NEXT GUY AND PASS THE SAVINGS ON TO YOU."