Hungry Jack’s to launch McCafe rival Jack’s Cafe

Hungry Jack’s is finally revealing its response to this McDonald’s favourite — insisting it can beat the number one at its own game.

Is the coffee better at Jack’s Cafe?

Hungry Jack’s is finally launching its answer to McCafe, more than a quarter of a century after McDonald’s opened its first cafe location in Melbourne.

Since 1993, McCafe has become a global success story for the fast-food giant and is now Australia’s biggest coffee chain with more than one fifth of the total market, selling up to one quarter of a million cups per day.

In coming months, Hungry Jack’s will launch a pilot of Jack’s Cafe at its five ACT stores selling “barista-style coffee and specialty beverages”, according to chief executive Chris Green, who noted coffee had been a “big, growing market for a period of time” but conceded that “maybe we’ve been a little late to market”.

“But our big advantage is we have 400 drive-throughs,” Mr Green said.

“People want coffee on the go. The McCafe offer, it’s internal and it’s external. Ours is definitely going to be more drive-through focused. Absolutely, we’re a little bit late, but we’ve got an amazing product and the right equipment.”

McDonald’s holds a 25.1 per cent market share of Australia’s $20.1 billion fast-food sector, according to IBISWorld, while Hungry Jack’s is the second largest with 8.6 per cent.

For Hungry Jack’s, the other big push is into meat-free alternatives. Burger King, as Hungry Jack’s is known overseas, earlier this year trialled a meat-free Whopper with Impossible Foods dubbed the Impossible Whopper.

Hungry Jack’s debuted a vegan cheeseburger last year with a veggie pattie, but Mr Green said the company was launching a plant-based protein burger later this year. “We’ve got an amazing product, researched really well with customers, so we’re looking forward to a really big launch with that,” he said.

Mr Green is taking part in the CEO Dare to Cure fundraiser this Friday.

Hungry Jack’s employees voted he should get a tattoo.

The new burger will be “absolutely suitable for vegans but (also) vegetarians or even flexitarians”, he said, noting up to 70 per cent of the population were in the latter group.

“It’s a carnivore that likes to not eat meat occasionally, whether it’s meat-free Monday or maybe a couple of times a week. People are either doing it for health or environmental reasons.”

Mr Green added that while it was “not going to overtake beef in the short term”, vegans and vegetarians made up 12 per cent of the population and it was a fast-growing segment. “I think it could be a big piece, but people will always want beef and chicken,” he said.

The new plant-based burger was created by v2Food, a joint-venture between Hungry Jack’s parent company Competitive Foods and the CSIRO, using “a legume like pea or bean, which have a fantastic protein profile for this kind of application”, CEO Nick Hazell told Business Insider earlier this year.

Last November, Hungry Jack’s signed an exclusive partnership with Menulog, while McDonald’s is partnered with UberEats. Mr Green said 250 sites were now available for delivery and “we’ll aim to be at 300 by Christmas”.

While many smaller restaurants struggle to turn a profit on Menulog, UberEats and Deliveroo due to delivery fees of 30-35 per cent, Mr Green said the bottom line was “you’ve got to cover your costs”.

“At the end of the day customers want convenience and they are willing to pay for it,” he said. “You can’t charge the same prices for delivery as you do in-store.”

Mr Green, who started his career flipping burgers at McDonald’s and was previously CEO of Red Rooster, is one of 90 business leaders set to “take on their fears” this Friday at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens as part of the CEO Dare to Cure fundraiser.

Challenges at the event, which aims to raise $550,000 for the Children’s Cancer Institute, include ice baths, fire walking and chilli eating. Mr Green will be getting a tattoo — possibly of a Whopper.

“We had an employee vote at Hungry Jack’s and tattoo came out as number one with 35 per cent,” he said. “I’m just working through the final design at the moment. I have actually had a couple of suppliers offer to donate large amounts if I got their logo on my body, which I’m still considering.”

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