Weekly Global News Wrap Up: McDonald's mulls $400m sale of Singapore, Malaysia units; Taco Bell unveils Cheetos burrito; Consumers pay the price as Starbucks slashes hours
Here is a summary of the most interesting QSR news stories of the week from around the world.
- Bloomberg reveals that McDonald’s Corp. is planning a sale of 20-year franchise rights in Malaysia and Singapore that could collectively fetch at least $400 million, people with knowledge of the matter said. Suitors for the fast-food operations in the two Southeast Asian markets have begun sounding out banks for financing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. READ MORE HERE.
- Taco Bell is launching a test of a Cheetos burrito. The fast-food chain is adding the wild mashup to the menu in Cincinnati in mid-August, Taco Bell told Business Insider. READ MORE HERE.
- According to Business Insider, Starbucks baristas say that the company is cutting hours—and consumers are paying the price. Workers around the country are complaining that the chain's streamlined scheduling system is giving them fewer hours than they would normally receive, reports Venessa Wong at BuzzFeed Business. READ MORE HERE.
- Two years after Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) announced that it will sell more vegetarian burgers in India, it is looking back at chicken in a big way, according to Quartz. As competition in India’s burger market heats up, fast-food chains are returning to what they know best—in KFC’s case, tubs of fried chicken—leaving the vegetarian menu as it is, for now. READ MORE HERE.
- BBC shares that every day hundreds of thousands of Britons put their coffee cup into a recycling bin. They're wrong - those cups aren't recyclable, and the UK throws away 2.5bn of them a year. It must stop, writes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. READ MORE HERE.
- The Sydney Morning Herald reports that even at its peak, the customers of Eagle Boys Pizza were among the least loyal in the fast food game and ready to permanently abandon the chain, new data shows. In the year to March, nearly 5 million Australians over 14 years of age visited or ordered from a pizza chain in the past month, up very slightly on the figure five years ago, according to research firm Roy Morgan. READ MORE HERE.
- Chicken giant Nando's allegedly used private security guards to take over a restaurant as part of a war against its largest franchisee over expensive upgrades. The ugly fight has now landed in court, throwing the company into turmoil, with Nando's franchisees around the country refusing to bow to head office's authority and renovate their stores until the dispute is resolved, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. READ MORE HERE.
- Cockroaches, locusts and crickets were released into two Byron Hamburger restaurants in the UK as part of a protest against the chain’s role in an immigration swoop which saw dozens of its workers rounded up. READ MORE HERE.