McDonalds CEO shares prediction that 2025 will be another challenging year

McDonald’s anticipates that 2025 will be “another challenging year” for the fast food chain which has seen inflation-hit customers pare back discretionary spending.Chris Kempczinski, the company’s chief executive officer, told a business gathering in Boston on Thursday that the Big Mac maker is girding for more turbulence ahead.“We’re starting to talk about 2025, and my message to our teams has been: ‘We need to be preparing for another challenging year’,” Kempczinski said in remarks at a Boston College Chief Executives Club event. “We need to be making sure that we’ve got a really strong value proposition in all of our markets.”Kempczinski’s comments were reported by Bloomberg News.McDonald’s revealed its first quarterly same-store sales drop in four years this past July.The company’s stock has seesawed this year as it struggled to win back penny-pinching customers put off by sky-high prices.In July, shares of McDonald’s were down more than 17% from Jan.1.

Since then, however, the stock has recovered – rallying for a 25% gain since the end of July.McDonald’s stock was up 2% on Friday.As of 10:30 a.m.

Eastern time, it was trading at slightly more than $304 a share.In recent years, inflation has sent the price of McDonald’s menu items soaring.In some locations, a Big Mac meal can cost as much as $18.To win back consumers, McDonald’s rolled out a special $5 value meal that includes a McDouble burger or McChicken sandwich, small fries, a four-piece Chicken McNuggets and a small drink.Last month, the company announced that it would extend the value meal, which was originally intended to be a limited-time-only offer, until December at most restaurants in the US.It’s the second time McDonald’s has extended the deal.The smaller value meals were cited as the reason that a major french fries supplier, Lamb Weston, slashed jobs and abruptly closed a factory last week.Kempczinski said on Thursday that McDonald’s will aim to of...