By exception, Mister Kitchen was allowed to watch in McDonald’s kitchen and cook there as part of their food design assignment to create a new summer burger for them. All constraints and requirements did not stop our creativity in the least, so after a challenging journey the Summer Crisp Parmesan saw the light of day!
MCDONALD’S CHALLENGE
In addition to the permanent range at the world’s largest burger restaurant chain, it is vital for them to regularly present a new burger on their menu. Both to surprise their customers as well as to base a themed marketing campaign on it. Summertime was the main focus, demanding an appealing hamburger which would draw in both regular and new customers. With this food design assignment in mind we headed into our kitchen to fry up some hamburgers.
MISTER KITCHEN’S APPROACH
After we could literally check out their kitchen, we got started in our own kitchen. Although we were given a long list of constraints and (im)possibilities, it only increased our creativity and ambitions during the design process.
In the end, we presented four completely different hamburgers with a matching summery marketing proposition to the management. The tasting ultimately resulted in the selection of a light Italian-style hamburger with a twist: a crunchy slice of Parmesan cheese. After approval by key franchisees, the real work could begin: converting our recipe for a scalable production process. Selecting and tasting suppliers’ ingredients and monitoring our recipe all the way to the production kitchen, was an intense yet inspiring process.
