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It’s all about market share, says McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson, and the chain plans to improve share by emphasizing the “entry level” Dollar Menu, Daily Double and Bacon McDouble burgers while encouraging trade-up to premium-price items such as its new pair of CBO (Cheddar Bacon Onion) Angus and chicken sandwiches. Thompson promised that the CBO [...]

Despite earlier promises that its London Olympics-sites menu would be the broadest it ever has assembled for the Games, athletes, press and spectators will find a menu that’s so narrow and safe as to be a bit of a gold-medal disappointment. There may be a 9,843-square-foot McDonald’s (its largest) at the Games, but the menu [...]

Burger King’s newfound ambitiousness continues to surprise. The chain announced a new summer menu that includes not just the rollout of the Carolina BBQ Whopper as predicted here earlier this week, but a rolling series of limited-time items that includes all of the products it had tested earlier this year in Nashville, including the much [...]

Is there a more curious cross-cultural mashup than an American fast-food chain hawking a Taiwanese beverage in Germany? Meet “Chan McTi” a Chinese character who may cross the border into caricature as he introduces bubble tea—tea with tapioca pearls—to McCafé in Germany. In his lemon-lime suit, Chan’s antic energy will make you wonder what’s really [...]

Starbucks’ $100 million acquisition of San Francisco-based Bay Bread LLC and its La Boulange bakery brand speeds the transformation of its coffee shops into bakery/cafes. As such, many observers see Starbucks looking to take share from top bakery/cafe brand Panera Bread. But Starbucks may also be moving to blunt the rapid growth of McCafé. Coffee [...]