McDonald’s is on the look out for ‘drive-to’ locations as well as home delivery hubs in order to capitalise on its online sales and avoid disruption from delivery drivers in its more traditional restaurants.
The fast-food chain is understood to be achieving more than £1bn of sales annually, through delivery or click and collect purchases, according to a report in The Sunday Times.
“We have had to think about the experience of someone walking in and ordering a meal for table service with their family, and not being disrupted by a courier collecting a delivery order,” said Alistair Macrow, chief executive for McDonald’s UK and Ireland.
The business currently has just shy of 1,400 restaurants in the UK and is understood to be targeting another 50 in the next year.
However, while its drive-thru model is very popular, McDonald’s is also on the lookout for ‘drive-to’ locations, which would be small restaurants designed to cater primarily for click and collect orders, as well as home delivery hubs – sites that would set aside a greater amount of space for couriers picking up online orders. It is also considering dark kitchens.
Speaking at MCA’s recent Restaurant Conference, McDonald’s UK & Ireland COO Gareth Pearson said rapidly evolving consumer trends had set a new pace of change at the business.
He said the business was “quite frankly, unrecognisable” to the business he joined as a trainee manager back in the 1990s.
Back then you would either order your food at the restaurant counter to eat-in or takeaway, or visit the drive-thru. Now the business has more than 11 channels for consumers to choose from, which is great for consumer choice but does bring with it some challenges as well, he conceded.
