I could go on and on here....but won’t unless asked. I’ve got many, many years in this sort of business - marketing, consulting, advertising, both sides of franchising.
Here’s the reality....people say they want healthy at fast food/fast casual outlets...but they don’t buy the healthy products. The products are there to avoid the “veto vote”, the customer in the car, in the group, or the family member who insists on “healthy”...even if that’s a salad with high fat toppings
McDonalds is being cautious because they need to carefully watch sales and how that affects franchisees, corporate earnings, and shareholder price as they introduce more healthy products to sales mix. As McDonalds is in the stratosphere of the top 6-7 chains ringing up more that $2 million/annual sales....they can afford to experiment, what percentage of $2 million annual sales do suppose salads with healthy dressings and apple slices are in the sales mix? Relatively minuscule.
Focus groups say time and time again “fast food is my guilty pleasure“, “French fries are my favorite”, “I’ll eat healthy during the week”, “I eat healthy at home”, etc.
My point is....big fast food and fast casual chains will offer more healthy choices when consumers *actually* demand it with their buying dollars. Right now it’s “perceived healthy” for the politics, let’s see when real healthy arrives??