OAK BROOK, Ill. — At an event Monday at its headquarters here, McDonald’s announced several changes to its ingredients, including eliminating artificial preservatives from some breakfast foods and Chicken McNuggets, its most popular food item, and removing high-fructose corn syrup from its buns.
Such changes, together with its decision in 2015 to buy only chicken raised without antibiotics used to treat humans, affect almost half the food on McDonald’s menu, the company said.
The moves are the latest in a series by the company to address changing demands by consumers, who have pushed food companies and restaurants to provide more healthy options and fewer artificial ingredients. It is also an effort to play defense against numerous competitors who promote the quality and freshness of their foods.
Mike Andres, president of McDonald’s U.S.A., said that over the past few years, the company took a hard look at its foods and how they were prepared. The ingredients it was using, like artificial preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup, had good reasoning behind them — but consumers disliked them.
Jessica Foust, director of culinary innovation at McDonald’s, hosted a group of reporters in a test kitchen to show how some of the changes will work in practice.
On the table in front of her were the five ingredients that go into an Egg McMuffin: an English muffin, a large egg, a slice of Canadian bacon, McDonald’s proprietary American cheese and butter — no longer liquid margarine.
The change took six months. “You have to be careful with butter,” Foust said. “We’re really cooking with real ingredients.”
Other changes, like getting artificial preservatives out of Chicken McNuggets, were easier — all the company had to do was take the preservative out of the oil it cooked them in.
One of the ways to get more customers, Andres said Monday, is to talk more openly about foods in an effort to change consumer attitudes toward McDonald’s.
“We’re going to continue to follow up and continue to inform customers — we told you we were going to do this, and here’s where we are on that,” he said.