McDonald's saw a real competitive threat from drive-through beverage chains like Dutch Bros and Seven Brew capturing young customers. They responded intelligently by launching a separate brand rather than cluttering the core menu.
After opening roughly 80 CosMc's locations, McDonald's discovered the entire beverage category wasn't a new business — it was just 2-3 SKUs driving all the revenue. About 50% of sales came from one caffeinated Frappuccino variant. The experiment proved they could capture 80% of the opportunity by simply adding those drinks to existing McDonald's.
McDonald's shut down all CosMc's locations in under two years. The beverages will roll into the main chain. Smart experiment, clean exit — they got the data they needed.
