- McDonald's Signature Crafted burgers are the chain's attempt at premium, "better burgers."
- The premium lineup is helping the chain's sales numbers, according to an April earnings call.
- When compared against two other major "better burger" chains, Shake Shack and Five Guys, we found them to hold their own in terms of quality.
McDonald's attempt to latch on to the meteoric rise of the better burger trend is yielding decent results.
In the company's last earnings call in April, McDonald's CFO Kevin Ozan said that sales are being buoyed, in part, by sales of the chain's Signature Crafted line of premium burgers, which run about $1-2 more than the rest of McDonald's burger menu.
After the experiment with a customizable burger program a few years ago proved unsuccessful, McDonald's tweaked it and retained several premium burger options — a garlic white cheddar burger, a pico guacamole burger, and a sweet BBQ bacon burger.
These burgers also have the distinction of using fresh beef patties, a very recent change to McDonald's longstanding and often-maligned tradition of using frozen patties.
This could reasonably put them in the same league as other fresh-grilled, premium, national burger chains — namely, Shake Shack and Five Guys. So we decided to compare McDonald's better-burger lineup to its competition to see if it has staying power in the industry — and we were surprised by what we found:
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McDonald's fancy burgers come in fancy branded boxes to distinguish them from your de rigueur quarter pounders.
First is the pico guacamole burger.
It's slathered with pico de gallo and guacamole, hence the name. The brioche bun is a regular on the premium lineup, and frankly, it is much better than the typical McDonald's sesame bun.
The burger is decent. The veggie-heavy ingredients are surprisingly fresh and vibrant.
The pico de gallo has firm, fleshy diced tomato and sharp onions, and the guacamole is better than one expects from McDonald's guacamole. This burger comes with a lime wedge in the box — it seems incongruous at first, but the acidic sharpness of the lime juice goes a long way to cut through the rich mellowness of this burger.
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