McDonald's faces slower chicken growth as competitors chase value

Chicken is still growing, but not at the pace that had made it fast food’s steadiest engine. Technomic data showed chicken category sales rose 5.3% in 2025, down from 9.1% in 2024 and more than 12% in 2023. That slowdown matters inside McDonald’s and its franchise system because chicken has become one of the biggest battlegrounds for traffic, value and repeat visits.

The broader market is cooling too. Technomic’s 2026 Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report said chain restaurant sales growth in 2025 slowed to its weakest pace outside the pandemic since the Great Recession. In that kind of market, chicken does not just sell sandwiches and strips. It becomes a pressure point for operators trying to keep checks up, protect margins and keep guests coming back while rivals push spicy sandwiches, wraps and other limited-time offers.

McDonald’s has leaned hard into that fight. The company launched McCrispy Strips nationwide in the U.S. on May 5, 2025, and said they were its first new permanent U.S. menu item in four years. It brought back the Chicken Big Mac in the U.S. on October 10, 2024 as a limited-time offer, and told customers that Snack Wraps would return in 2025. Each move signals the same thing to crew and managers: chicken is no longer a quiet part of the menu. It is a core growth lever that can trigger new prep routines, more frequent launch cycles and more pressure to keep a familiar product feeling fresh.

That matters on the floor. More chicken launches can mean more training, more kitchen coordination and more emphasis on speed when stores are chasing traffic-sensitive dayparts. For franchisees, the challenge is even sharper. Value promotions can bring customers in, but they can also squeeze profitability if labor, waste and ingredient costs rise faster than sales. McDonald’s chief executive Chris Kempczinski said in February 2026 that the company’s recovery would come from a mix of value offerings and full-priced menu items, which is exactly why chicken has become such a strategic balancing act.

The result is a menu race that is as much about workplace pressure as it is about product innovation. As competitors chase value and freshness, McDonald’s employees are likely to feel it in the pace of launches, the need to keep chicken items moving and the constant push to make the category do more work in a slower market.