“Desserts are like mistresses. They are bad for you. So if you are having one, you might as well have two.” This quote that will make sense shortly, as this week, two titans of #fastfood and snacking made major waves.
The first is McDonald's🍔, with their new spin-off, CosMc’s, a bold concept focused on indulgent drinks and a sprinkling of trendy ingredients, married to traditional flavors, in formats like slushes and frappés. Add to this various hero products from the regular McD's food menu, and new breakfast-inspired sandwiches like the “Creamy Avocado🥑 Tomatillo Sandwich”.
CosMc's looks like a winner for a target audience of under-30 consumers who haven’t banished sugar and are not afraid to indulge regularly, and demand 👀 umami-like taste experiences.
The other is Krispy Kreme🍩 a pioneer in bringing theatre (the conveyor belts seen through the storefronts) to sugary, but freshly made donuts that became a national obsession and pop culture mainstay in the early 2000s.
Krispy Kreme, then a publicly listed company, seemed down for the count in 2016, and a casualty of the #betterforyou (BFY) food movement when it filed for bankruptcy and went private. But this year, it’s all the rage again, including in Paris this month, where a new generation of Parisians are lining up for the brand’s signature, freshly made confections.
I’ve stated this often. The BFY food movement has never been about absolutes, despite some BFY F&B brands’ literal-minded placement of a zero sugar drink, kale leaf, and smattering of pepita seeds next to their products on social media. For millions of consumers, a BFY approach is defined as a kale salad with a calorie rich dressing, and a regular Coke.
Back to McDonald's new concept. How about a CosMc’s Churro Frappe paired with Savory Hash Brown Bites as a midday snack? It’s going to happen. CosMc’s proposed launch menu is a colorful, TikTok friendly mix of nostalgic flavors, guilty pleasure drinks and anytime breakfast favorites like the McMuffin, that will all likely modernize the McDonald’s brand even more.
And Krispy Kreme’s new Paris outpost is sited in a location that once housed a Michelin-star restaurant from famed French chef 🧑🍳 Alain Ducasse. So about that quote, it was Ducasse who quipped: “Desserts are like mistresses. They are bad for you. So if you are having one, you might as well have two.”
Not a problem since the new Paris Krispy Kreme expects to produce 45,000 donuts a day.
#commentary #foodandbeverage #snacks