Have you noticed that Cokes just taste DIFFERENT at McDonald’s? (Now for you more health conscious individuals I feel the need to mention that I don’t frequent McDonald’s much any more. Apparently the older I get the more my body tells me, “You can’t eat like a teenager anymore!”) Well, I did some research and it really is a thing that McDonald’s Cokes (and Diet Cokes) do taste different and there is a reason why.

This excerpt is from the McDonald’s website:

There are many reasons the Coca-Cola tastes so great at McDonald’s. We simply follow the guidelines set by Coca-Cola and take steps to ensure it tastes the same as when you buy it in a bottle. 

The water and Coca-Cola syrup are pre-chilled before entering our fountain dispensers with the ratio of syrup set to allow for ice to melt. We also keep our fountain beverage system cold so your drink can always be at the peak of refreshing. In order to ensure our drinks are always meeting a gold standard, we have proper filtration methods in place. 

There’s also our straw – it’s slightly wider than a typical straw, so all that Coke taste can hit all your tastebuds. 

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My first takeaway is how intentional McDonald’s is in making sure that a soda from their fountain tastes just as it would as if it came from a bottle. Stephen Covey famously described this strategy as, “Begin with the end in mind.” By knowing where they wanted to end (making sure a Coke in their restaurants tastes like Coke in a bottle) they then determined the steps to help them get there.

Let’s start with those steps:

1. The syrup and water are pre-chilled before entering the fountain dispensers.  My first job was a fast-food restaurant and I can tell you we didn’t pre-chill anything! We simply grabbed the box of soda syrup, plugged it in to our dispenser and that was it.
2. The syrup to water ratio is based on the assumption that users will be adding ice to the soda. Consequently there is more syrup in the mix to compensate for the water added from melting ice cubes. No wonder it doesn’t taste watered down!
3. They filter their drinks-although, I would think other restaurants do too? So I don’t know how much of a difference maker this is.
4. McDonald’s straws are wider, which allow more soda and air into your mouth, which makes it taste better. (Kind of like when you are doing a wine tasting and you do the “slurp” thing, it’s the same principle at work here.)

My second takeaway is that McDonald’s looked at all of the details to make this work. They didn’t just say, “It’s soda. Whatevs!” They went into the details to solve problems I didn’t even know were problems (diameter of straws?) Until I did research for this post I didn’t even think of the diameter of straws being a “thing!” Yet now that I think of it, those straws are wider aren’t they?? Who knew?

What does have to do with you? Successful people are those that think of the “little things” day in and day out.Because those little things can end up being big things, even when you don’t know it. After all, you might not have consciously known that their Cokes taste better, but your subconscious might have. Which in turn could have made the overall experience even more positive, without your knowing why. (It could also be the fries…but that’s for another time.)

BTW: I am not being compensated by McDonald’s for this-and as I mentioned earlier, I do not eat at McDonald’s much anymore. I do however like to share success strategies and principles that I know will help you succeed!