The Big Mac, a luxury product? The price has more than doubled in 25 years

Between 2000 and today, the average price of the most famous hamburger has increased by 121%. Will the rising cost of living gradually turn the Big Mac into a luxury product? That remains to be seen

Photo : McDonald’s

If McDonald's remains a good address for millions of consumers around the world, it is not so much because of the quality of its hamburgers as because of the promise of a convenient, affordable meal for the whole family. Rather than a question of brand, it is a matter of a kind of heritage, which can be hard to bear in times of inflationary turbulence. In order to continue to have good reasons to visit the fast food chain with the golden arches, its accessibility must be guaranteed.

But between 2000 and today, the average price of a McDonald's hamburger in the eurozone has increased by 121%. Twenty-five years ago, a Big Mac cost 2.56 euros, compared to 2.24 dollars in the United States. According to The Economist's Big Mac Index, the average price of a Big Mac today is 5.67 euros or 5.79 dollars. This 'burgernomics' was created in the late 1980s to make the theory of purchasing power parity and the calculation of exchange rates more palatable.

The Big Mac cost $0.45 when it was introduced in 1967. A price that was a subject of debate from the start. Michael James "Jim" Delligatti, a dedicated franchisee, had to insist for two long years that the parent company offer a hamburger with two slices of ground beef instead of one.

The Big Mac was introduced gradually, starting in the twelve restaurants Delligatti managed. At the time, management feared that sales would suffer because of the price, which was double that of a traditional sandwich. But the Big Mac was such a success that by 1968, a year later, every restaurant in the American market had it on its menu.

A matter of costs

In the nearly eight decades since the McDonald brothers opened their first San Bernardino location, pricing has often been a topic of discussion. Bad experiences shared on impulse regularly set social media alight. So much so that, as a publicly traded franchise, the chain felt obliged to break its silence on its pricing policy.

"It frustrates and concerns me and many franchisees to hear that a Big Mac is being sold for $18, even in just one of the more than 13,700 restaurants in the United States. What is even more concerning is that people are starting to believe that this is the rule rather than the exception," lamented the chairman of McDonald's USA in 2024

Given the 'mass of misinformation', the company with the capital M wanted to dot the i's and cross the t's. To this end, a special fact-checking was set up, which showed that the price increase for both fries and hamburgers followed the increase in operational costs in restaurants. After all, inflation has an impact on wages, food, packaging and the supply chain.

In America, as in Belgium, the franchisees who own and operate most restaurants have quite a bit of freedom in determining the prices of their menus. It makes sense that they pass on rising costs to the consumer in order to maintain their profit margins.

To view this apparent increase in the price of the Big Mac, an economic barometer in itself, objectively, it must be set against the inflation of consumer prices over the same period. It is difficult to capture 'world inflation' in a single precise figure. After all, it is not a consolidated statistic but the sum of the varying percentages of many countries. Estimates based on historical trends and observed fluctuations yield a figure of around 120%.

It remains to be seen whether the continued price increases will reduce the appetite for the iconic hamburger among less affluent consumers.