The Big Problem Customers Have With McDonald's Saweetie Meal

This week, the anticipated Saweetie's McDonald's meal launched. Naturally, people had opinions about the latest in McDonald's line of celebrity meals. On Reddit, that opinion is negative.

Redditors' issue is with the pricing of the meal. "It's $10 for a big Mac meal with a 4 piece nug," one user noted. "It's $9.80 when ordered individually. What's the point?" A response joked that since it's the Saweetie sweet and sour sauce, the extra vowels bump the price to make the deal more expensive than necessary. Another noted that despite the hyped "remix" aspect of the meal, the only special thing with the deal is the Saweetie sweet and sour sauce.

This is in strong contrast to the press coverage of the McDonald's special. Insider considered the meal to have a good value, and both it and The Takeout positively wrote about how now we are encouraged to play with our food, which might result in some interesting ideas. However, as good as the idea of putting some fries into your burger may be, it does not alter the basic constitution of the meal, which is a pretty regular McDonald's meal at a price higher than if you used coupons on the same items ordered separately.

Ever since the Travis Scott Meal, McDonald's has been set to go down the path of celebrity collaborations. This was only more so when they teamed up with BTS. The reasoning behind these collaborations is given with surprising bluntness by CNN: "It's easy for the chain to rearrange existing menu items into a buzzy meal without additional work for its employees." They proceed to note that this is necessary as fast-food chains operate on the same thin margins as most restaurants, making anything that stands out a welcome asset.

The point is driven further home as Forbes notes that the Travis Scott Meal, which also did not require McDonald's to actually change the basic foods offered, helped the company swing from an 8.7% drop in the second financial quarter of 2020 to a 4.6% gain in the third. In other words, the very thing people on Reddit are complaining about is the very reason such deals exist in the first place. McDonald's can charge a lot of money for seemingly doing nothing other than slapping a famous name upon the sauce container.