McDonald's bets $8.5B on franchisees and a 'Next' overhaul to win customers back

McDonald's is the largest US fast-food chain with 11% of the market; 95% of its US restaurants are franchisee-owned, which makes every strategy dependent on operator buy-in.

That an $8.5B, 10-year franchisee support plan plus a 'McDonald's > Next' overhaul of food, service and operations can win back squeezed customers.

Kempczinski's barrage of $5 meals and $6 mix-and-match deals failed to reverse the slide, and in August he conceded too many menu and deal launches had overwhelmed restaurants and harmed service — just as the company asked franchisees to spend $1 million per store on remodels.

At the September investor day in Chicago, Kempczinski fleshed out 'McDonald's > Next': serve better food, improve service, make restaurants easier to run, and be 'the first choice for more customers more often'. The centrepiece is an $8.5 billion 10-year plan to help franchisees with capital support and rent relief, $5 billion of it by 2030; shares fell on the spending news. The remodel target of 50,000 restaurants slipped to 2028 from 2027, and only 60-65% of restaurants implemented the summer's 'under $3 menu'. On the menu, McDonald's is testing hand-breaded chicken and protein-rich grilled-chicken bowls aimed at GLP-1 users, launched crafted sodas and energy drinks with Red Bull, and aims to lift its share of the global beverage and chicken markets by 1.5 percentage points each by 2030, while testing voice-AI ordering at the drive-thru.

The failure being fixed is specific — deal overload that hurt service and alienated franchisees — and the fix spends real money rather than adding more promotions.

Franchisee alignment is the binding constraint in a 95%-franchised system, and the $8.5 billion plan is aimed exactly there.

Chicken and beverages are the fastest-growing QSR categories, and 1.5-point share targets make the bet measurable by 2030.

The prior strategy, 'Accelerating the Arches', worked — Kempczinski is betting the playbook transfers to a harsher cost environment with beef prices nearly doubled over five years.

In a franchise system, strategy is a capital negotiation: the plan only works if the people who own 95% of the stores believe the parent will share the cost of the fix.

As of October 7, 2026, the plan was weeks old: shares fell on the spending news, franchisee discussions were described as constructive, and the earliest proof points — remodel pace, chicken and beverage share, visit trends — all sit in 2027 and beyond.