McDonald's Teases The Return Of Fan-Favorite Snack Wraps
If you haven't been paying close attention to the McDonald's corporate goings-on, you may have missed some very exciting news. Hop on McDonald's Instagram and you'll find news of the upcoming Kerwin Frost Box and a collaboration with Crocs that nobody asked for (but it's sick). What you won't find is any mention of the return of the Snack Wrap. But, after a seven-year hiatus, it looks like fans should start gearing up to welcome back the beloved menu item.
Per an official company press release issued on December 6, 2023, Snack Wraps will finally be coming back as part of the chain's new McCrispy line, which will include McCrispy chicken tenders and an updated version of the Snack Wrap. Ostensibly, the new McCrispy tender will be the crispy base of the revised Snack Wrap, so the familiar product will make its comeback with a few tweaks from the previous version. The original Snack Wraps tucked grilled or crispy chicken, lettuce, shredded cheese, and sauce into a soft tortilla.
During its abridged retirement, absence only made the heart grow fonder, and people flooded the comment section of nearly every McDonald's social media post with Snack Wrap demands. Competitors like Wendy's have even released similar chicken wraps to appease forlorn fans of the savory meal. After posting a pot-stirring Tweet in November 2022, McDonald's told Food Network that it had "no plans to bring Snack Wraps back to nationwide menus in the U.S." Now, the company's message is looking less like "Sike!" and more like "Haha ... unless?"
A long-awaited saga will come to a happy conclusion ... eventually
Per the McDonald's press release, fans these days are visiting Mickey D's for its chicken as much as for its beef, and the company is seizing the growth opportunity by "aggressively expand[ing] through billion-dollar equities including McNuggets, McChicken, McCrispy, and McSpicy." (McCrispy is the artist formerly known as the "Crispy Chicken Sandwich.") "If" may be solved, but "when" is another matter.
McDonald's has yet to announce an exact timeline for the long-awaited Snack Wrap comeback. The McCrispy line will be offered in "nearly all markets" around the world in 2025, but that's all we know for now. According to Morgan Flatley — McDonald's Chief Global Marketing Officer and Head of New Business Ventures — it all comes down to "sequencing," that is, releasing new products or bringing back old favorites at the proper moment for maximum scope.
As he explained during an earnings call on December 6, 2023, "McCrispy, we're in the early days really of building that brand ... You can have the effect where one plus one plus one equals two ... And I think our thoughts around our chicken portfolio and how we are going to build the chicken portfolio in the U.S. are such that we want to make sure we get it right, so that one plus one plus one equals five." McDonald's also recently announced plans to make its burgers bigger to help combat "shrinkflation."