Yahoo Finance ‘On every corner’: Maccas plans to open 40 new stores a year
McDonald’s Australia CEO Andrew Gregory said the fast food giant is planning to open 40 new restaurants a year, for at least the next few years.
Speaking at The Australian’s Global Food Forum, Gregory said the plan is to open a new restaurant in “every corner of the country”.
“We opened our 1000th restaurant last year, we’re very proud of that,” he said.
“We’re trying to get to 40 restaurants over the next couple of years, which is a significant level of growth for a mature business like Maccas.”
Currently, McDonalds orders around 32 million kilograms of beef and 16 million kilograms of chicken every year.
Gregory said that price changes in beef had been challenging for the business during COVID, but managed to continue growing throughout last year.
“It’s a challenge and beef is one of those commodities that does become very volatile for us,” he said.
“But we have to be great value in our business. It is a competitive industry, we pass on costs, but when we do but we try to be as cost effective as possible.
“A lot of our suppliers have been around for 50 years as well and we work with them and one of the things we value is certainty over lowest costs, so having certainty, having long term relationships with our suppliers is incredibly important to manage costs in our businesses.”
Gregory said Aussies continued returning to the fast food chain during the pandemic and liked to stick to the classics.
“What we found customers do last year was go back to our core favourites such as Big Mac quarter pounder, cheese burger compared to new products,” he said.
“In difficult times when they come to our business they go back to what they know and love.”
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