Never say never: The McRib made a comeback in the US in 2023. Whether the cult-favourite burger will return to Germany after disappearing from the permanent menu remains uncertain.
After 37 years, the McRib is disappearing from McDonald’s permanent menu in Germany. For loyal customers, the decision marks the end of a familiar favourite. From a business perspective, however, it is initially little more than a menu adjustment. The corporation behind the Golden Arches now generates more than $139 billion in annual sales across its worldwide restaurant system. Its business model has long depended on far more than selling burgers and fries.
A Classic Disappears – For Now
On October 27, 2026, the McRib will be available for the last time as a permanent menu item in Germany, at least for the foreseeable future. From the following day, the pork burger with barbecue sauce, onions and pickles will disappear from the regular menu.
It has been a fixture in Germany since 1989. Internationally, however, that has been the exception rather than the rule. In the United States, the McRib has largely been marketed as a limited-time product since the mid-1980s.
McDonald’s has not provided a specific explanation for the German menu decision. The company merely refers to the regular development of its product range and the introduction of rotating promotional items.
A limited-time variation, the McRib Sweet Heat, is already available. McDonald’s has also announced a new pork burger called the McFarmer as a promotional product.
It would therefore be premature to declare the McRib brand permanently discontinued. What has been confirmed is the end of its continuous availability in Germany.
The McRib’s contribution to sales has not been publicly disclosed. Without product-specific figures, it is also impossible to determine whether declining demand, production costs or strategic considerations were responsible for the decision.
Nevertheless, the attention generated by its departure illustrates the particular value of product names that have been established over decades.
The Business Behind the Golden Arches
McDonald’s is much more than an international restaurant operator. The American corporation has developed a business model that combines tens of thousands of restaurants with a largely centrally managed global brand.
At the end of 2025, the McDonald’s system comprised 45,356 restaurants worldwide. Approximately 95 per cent were operated by franchisees.
This means that the overwhelming majority of restaurants are not directly managed by the corporation. Independent entrepreneurs handle day-to-day operations, employ staff and bear a substantial share of operating costs and financial risks.
In return, McDonald’s provides access to its brand, operating system, standardised products, marketing concepts and technological infrastructure.
This structure enables the company to maintain a worldwide presence without having to operate every location itself or directly bear all the associated costs.
The scale of the business is reflected in its 2025 figures.
Total sales across the worldwide McDonald’s restaurant system reached $139.4 billion. That represented an increase of seven per cent compared with the previous year, or five per cent at constant exchange rates.
The corporation’s reported revenue, however, amounted to approximately $26.9 billion.
These figures measure different things. The $139.4 billion includes sales made to customers by independently operated franchise restaurants. Those sales generally do not form part of McDonald’s Corporation’s reported revenue.
Instead, the corporation generates income through fees, rents and revenue-sharing arrangements, as well as through restaurants it operates directly.
In 2025, McDonald’s generated operating profit of approximately $12.4 billion, achieving an operating margin of 46.1 per cent.
McDonald’s Also Makes Money from Real Estate
One distinctive feature of the McDonald’s business model is the combination of food service and property management.
Under conventional franchise arrangements, McDonald’s frequently controls the land and buildings used by its restaurants. Some properties are owned by the corporation, while others are leased on a long-term basis and subsequently subleased to franchisees.
In addition to fees for using the brand, McDonald’s therefore receives regular rental payments.
In 2025, the corporation generated approximately $10.4 billion in rental income from franchised restaurants and a further $6 billion in royalty revenues. Additional income came from initial franchise fees.
These figures alone demonstrate why the economic importance of McDonald’s cannot be reduced to the sale of individual menu items.
Control over numerous restaurant locations provides the corporation with long-term income opportunities and considerable influence over its network. Franchise agreements frequently run for 20 years and can subsequently be extended or renegotiated.
This does not mean that all rental income represents profit. McDonald’s must meet its own lease obligations, finance and maintain properties, and account for depreciation.
Nevertheless, franchising contributes a particularly large share of the company’s operating performance. In 2025, approximately 90 per cent of its restaurant margins came from franchised locations.
McDonald’s thus benefits from a structure in which the brand, the physical location and restaurant operations are closely connected economically, while entrepreneurial responsibilities are distributed among different participants.
Why Products Disappear and Return
This economic foundation gives McDonald’s considerable flexibility to adjust its menu.
On the one hand, the company must provide consistency. Products such as the Big Mac and its signature fries represent an offering that customers have recognised for decades.
On the other hand, an internationally established restaurant chain needs to create new reasons for customers to visit. Rotating burgers, special sauces, seasonal promotions and limited-time collaborations introduce variety into an otherwise highly standardised system.
Limited availability can have a particular marketing effect. Products offered for only a few weeks create an immediate reason to purchase. Customers cannot postpone their decision indefinitely.
The American McRib is a well-known example of this approach. Its recurring comebacks have become marketing events in their own right over the years.
Whether McDonald’s intends to pursue the same strategy with the German menu change has not been confirmed.
Nevertheless, the case illustrates how differently the same product can be used commercially: either as a permanently available part of the menu or as a limited-time incentive for an additional restaurant visit.
McDonald’s demonstrated its continuing menu development at the end of September, when it introduced new chicken products and changed the shape of the McChicken.
The changes therefore extend beyond individual burgers. They are part of an ongoing process in which established products, new variations and temporary promotional offers are combined.
The Next Growth Engine Is Inside the Smartphone
Alongside franchising, McDonald’s has expanded another business strategy in recent years: digital ordering and loyalty programmes.
In the second quarter of 2026, the number of 90-day active users of its loyalty programmes across the markets measured approached 220 million. This represented an increase of 13 per cent compared with the previous year.
Across the 70 markets operating these programmes, sales to identified loyalty members totalled approximately $40 billion over the preceding twelve months, an increase of more than 20 per cent.
These figures represent sales across the restaurant system to participating customers, not revenue generated exclusively by the corporate headquarters.
The commercial importance of such programmes, however, extends beyond the transactions themselves.
Digital orders and customer accounts allow companies to deliver more targeted promotions, simplify ordering and encourage repeat visits.
At the same time, McDonald’s gains information about which products are frequently ordered together, when customers visit its restaurants and which promotions generate particularly strong responses.
Such data can support menu planning and help evaluate new products.
It would be speculative to conclude that particular McRib variations will therefore be offered more or less frequently in the future. Nevertheless, McDonald’s already possesses the technological infrastructure required to make such decisions using detailed sales information.
Germany Is Growing – While the US Shows Weakness
Despite its size, McDonald’s is not immune to business challenges.
In the second quarter of 2026, the corporation generated approximately $7.1 billion in revenue, an increase of four per cent compared with the same period a year earlier.
Sales across the entire restaurant system reached around $37 billion, up five per cent.
Growth at comparable restaurants, however, was considerably weaker. Worldwide comparable sales increased by just 1.3 per cent, compared with growth of 3.8 per cent in the previous year.
The slowdown was particularly evident in the company’s US home market. Comparable sales there rose by only 0.8 per cent, after increasing by 2.5 per cent in the corresponding quarter a year earlier.
Another distinction is important: the increase in US sales was primarily driven by higher average spending per order or a more favourable sales mix. The number of transactions at comparable restaurants actually declined.
Higher sales therefore do not necessarily mean that more customers are visiting.
Business developed more favourably in the corporation’s internationally operated markets. Germany, Australia and the United Kingdom were among the main contributors to growth.
Germany was consequently one of McDonald’s stronger international markets during the second quarter of 2026.
When Higher Prices Drive Growth
McDonald’s performance reflects a broader challenge facing the restaurant industry.
According to Germany’s Federal Association of System Catering (Bundesverband der Systemgastronomie), consumer spending on food-service activities in Germany reached approximately €88.6 billion in 2025. In nominal terms, this represented growth of around two per cent compared with the previous year.
However, the increase resulted entirely from higher spending per visit, particularly due to rising prices. There was no corresponding growth in customer visits.
The quick-service and chain restaurant sector performed better than traditional independent restaurants, recording nominal growth of four per cent compared with just one per cent for the latter. Nevertheless, price increases and actual changes in sales volumes must also be distinguished here.
For McDonald’s, this creates a commercial balancing act.
On the one hand, the corporation must account for rising labour, energy, food and property costs. On the other, the promise of a relatively affordable and convenient meal has been part of its brand positioning for decades.
If customers perceive burgers and meal deals as becoming too expensive, this can affect how frequently they visit.
Value menus, loyalty promotions and limited-time products therefore become increasingly important. They are intended to create purchasing incentives without requiring permanent price reductions across the entire menu.
Whether this strategy works cannot be judged solely by the average amount spent per order. It also depends on whether enough customers continue to return regularly.
A Burger Can Be Replaced – A Brand Is Harder to Replicate
McDonald’s decision to remove the McRib from Germany’s permanent menu after 37 years does not, in itself, represent a fundamental turning point for the business.
The corporation does not publish product-specific sales figures that would reveal the burger’s importance to overall performance. Nor has it disclosed the internal reasoning behind the decision.
Nevertheless, the case illustrates how much commercial flexibility can arise from the size and recognition of a brand.
McDonald’s can modify products, temporarily discontinue them or replace them with new variations without having to rebuild its entire market position.
At the same time, the brand remains dependent on customers being willing to accept those changes.
The McRib in particular demonstrates that a product familiar to consumers for decades can represent more than an interchangeable meal. The public attention surrounding its departure suggests a degree of emotional attachment, although it is not proof of the product’s commercial success.
For the corporation, the challenge is to preserve such customer relationships while maintaining a profitable and contemporary menu.
Its multibillion-dollar franchise and real-estate operations provide a substantial economic foundation. They do not, however, guarantee that every burger, pricing decision or advertising campaign will succeed.
For now, the McRib is disappearing from Germany’s permanent menu. McDonald’s future growth will depend less on this individual product than on the corporation’s ability to keep giving customers reasons to return.
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