Image taken from www.mcdonalds.ca

After the all the publicity of the pending merge of Burger King and Tim Hortons, McDonald’s has dropped another bomb on us: the introduction of its popular coffee to Canadian grocery stores. In this Toronto Star article, McDonald’s Canada’s CEO John Betts explains the company’s strategy behind this move. Some of the main reasons are that:

1) Canada is the largest consumer market for the McCafé.

2) The article cites a Saeco Survey from August 2014 that claims “92 per cent of caffeine fans make their own brew regularly,” so making McCafé accessible to home-brewers can expand the coffee’s consumers.

3) The aforementioned home-brewers usually pick the DIY way to save money as prices for coffee rise, as well as to have the freedom of customizing their drink to their tastes.

I found it interesting how McDonald’s has used the survey to analyze their target segment’s needs, which is exactly what we discussed in class. Note that the three reasons mentioned above are all customer-centric. The company then used the consumers’ ‘pain’ and ‘gain’ to direct the development of their product. While McDonald’s is not the only company to offer coffee on grocery shelves (Starbucks, for example, has already pushed its product into other distributing channels), the move certainly indicates that the fast-food industry is very sensitive to consumer preference. To stay relevant, these ultra-competitive companies must constantly revise their business model as consumers start to shift towards more health-conscious or cost-effective eating habits.