The contestants on Iron Chef have it easy compared with Dan Coudreaut, director of culinary innovation at McDonald's (MCD). Sure, the TV duelists have just an hour to whip up five dishes incorporating the same ingredients. But check out Coudreaut's constraints: He's only allowed to prepare dishes that can be made by entry-level help at every one of the chain's U.S. 14,000 locations and from ingredients available in industrial quantities year-round. And, oh yeah, the food has to appeal every day to millions of customers who don't have a lot of money or time or the stomach for anything too unusual.
His challenge is apparent after a few minutes in his test kitchen, which is housed behind glass walls near a row of cubicles in McDonald's suburban Chicago headquarters. Dressed in a chef's smock, Coudreaut mixes toasted coriander and cumin with cilantro stems, lemongrass, ginger, and chilies in a blender. He stirs the spicy paste into coconut milk, which he reduces over high heat and adds to a pan of sauteed eggplant. And what might become of his red curry eggplant? After playing around more with the recipe, he says, some of the flavors might make their way into a ranch sauce in a few years.
Coudreaut, or Chef Dan as he's called within McDonald's, has navigated pretty well within his straits. Since hired on in 2004, he has led the creation of the Snack Wrap, the latest iterations of McDonald's chicken-topped salad entree, the Fruit and Walnut Salad, McCafé espresso-based coffees, and, most recently, the 1/3-lb. Angus burger. (He has blown it, too. McDonald's dropped the too-adventurous Hot 'n' Spicy McChicken sandwich in 2007 after just six months on the market and disappointing sales.)
The stream of new products is paying off. While restaurant sales have been sinking industrywide since the recession hit in 2007, McDonald's quarterly same-store sales have continued to climb. The string, which began in 2003, continues into the third quarter, with a 1.7% increase in the U.S. in August and 2.6% in July. CEO James A. Skinner credited the gains to premium coffees and the Angus burger.
The Angus burger followed a typical course, Coudreaut says. After seeing rivals such as Burger King (BKC) and Hardee's (CKR) boost sales with heavyweight cheeseburgers, McDonald's franchisees petitioned the company in early 2007 to come up with a premium sandwich of its own. Coudreaut invited chefs from McDonald's suppliers, including Cargill and Kraft Foods (KFT), to his test kitchen in Oak Brook, Ill., and together with his four-person staff they began cooking. They started with 20 types of patties, in various sizes and made from different cuts of beef, and 30 buns.
They tried a ciabatta roll and Italian flat bread, for instance, but the company's marketing team steered them back to a traditional bakery bun. "Americans have a sense of what a burger is," Coudreaut notes. "They want a sesame-seed bun."
After six months of team cooking and market research, Coudreaut weeded the choices down to one basic sandwich, with three sets of toppings. Then restaurant owners in key markets began testing the product to see if employees could follow the recipe reliably—McDonald's kitchens weren't using bacon, sliced red onion, or sauteed mushrooms—and if customers liked it enough to spend $3.99 on a fast-food sandwich.
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