A few weeks after the McDonald’s dietitian was extolling their healthy menu options during an interview and a week or so after a nine-year-old girl pleads for McDonald’s to stop pushing junk food on kids, the company’s CEO announces that their salads are a failing venture.

Apparently the salads only account for about 2-3% of sales. Does this mean that McDonald’s will ditch the salads? We don’t know, but I think that they should.

Shocking, I know; a dietitian suggesting McDonald’s get rid of their salads. Don’t get too worked-up just yet. I think that in their current incarnation the salads should go. The salads can have more calories and fat than many of their burgers. Yes, they may have a few more nutrients as there’s some vegetables in them, but  not enough to merit the health halo they have for being salads. It’s almost worse for customers to be operating under the false assumption that they’re making healthy choices than for them to be opting for traditional fast food fare.

There may be a number of reasons why the salads aren’t generating much revenue: most customers aren’t there for salads, the cost of salads is quite high, the cost of the ingredients may mean they have a low profit margin, the salads aren’t very good. If McDonald’s could create a better (i.e. more appealing and healthier) salad menu then they might see sales increase. As it stands, it’s a bit of a vicious cycle and McDonald’s can say “we tried to sell salads but people just didn’t want them”. Maybe this is true, but maybe the problem lies with the salads.