Free coffee at McDonald's as breakfast competition heats up

Free coffee offer at McDonald's begins March 31 and lasts until April 13. The move comes a week after Taco Bell announced a new breakfast menu in an ad featuring 25 men named Ronald McDonald. 

|
Mark Lennihan/AP
A McDonald's breakfast is arranged for an illustration in 2013, in New York. Chains like McDonald's Corp., Taco Bell, and Starbucks Corp. — which recently revamped its sandwiches — are all fighting for a piece of the breakfast market because people are increasingly buying breakfast on the go.

McDonald's is offering free coffee to its customers for a limited time as competition for the breakfast crowd intensifies.

The world's biggest hamburger chain announced Friday that participating US locations will offer small cups of McCafe coffee at no charge during breakfast hours from March 31 through April 13.

McDonald's said that this is the first time it's ever had a free coffee event nationwide. Its McCafe product line, which also includes iced coffees and other drinks, debuted in the US in 2009.

The company is hoping that the coffee giveaway will bring in new customers. It's also a way to get existing customers to come in more frequently. And it's likely that those stopping by for a free coffee will be tempted to pick up a breakfast sandwich or other items while there.

Breakfast is an important component of McDonald's business, comprising about 20 percent of its US sales.

Chains like McDonald's Corp., Taco Bell and Starbucks Corp. — which recently revamped its sandwiches — are all fighting for a piece of the breakfast market because people are increasingly buying breakfast on the go.

McDonald's coffee giveaway comes shortly after it reported that an important sales figure declined 1.4 percent at established US locations in February. The chain blamed bad winter weather but also said that "challenging industry dynamics" played a role. The company has worked on adapting by making menu changes such as giving an option for egg whites in breakfast sandwiches and adding chicken McWraps to help appeal to those looking for fresher, healthier food.

For a long time McDonald's, which started offering breakfast nationally in 1975 with the roll out of the Egg McMuffin, has dominated the morning category. Rival Burger King came out with their breakfast menu in 1979 and others have followed. The latest is Taco Bell, which launched its new breakfast menu on Thursday.

But McDonald's is still a force - it's 31 percent of the category makes it the No. 1 player in breakfast, according to market researcher Technomic.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Free coffee at McDonald's as breakfast competition heats up
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0331/Free-coffee-at-McDonald-s-as-breakfast-competition-heats-up
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe