August 2025<\/a>, between 20 and 40 employees of the McDonald\u2019s St Lukes location walked off the job after a below-inflation pay offer.<\/p>\nThe largest expense increase was for \u201cother expenses\u201d, which lifted from $12.9m in 2024 to $25.2m in 2025, a 95.2% increase. <\/p>\n
However, no information is given in the financial statements as to what this was spent on.<\/p>\n
The head office reported a net profit for the year of $108.7m, up from $59.7m the year prior.<\/p>\n
The significant difference can be attributed to a lower income tax expense for 2025 of just $41.3m. <\/p>\n
The company had to pay $87.3m in income tax in 2024 because of a deferred tax hit from changes in the way building depreciation was accounted for.<\/p>\n
Value v cost increases<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s New Zealand head of impact and communications Simon Kenny said the results reflected a strong performance in a challenging operating environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2025 financial performance was driven by the core strengths of the McDonald\u2019s business model, and the \u2018three-legged stool\u2019 of the corporate, franchisees and suppliers,\u201d Kenny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a key focus on delivering to customer value and affordability expectations, while mitigating significant increases in food costs, in particular beef.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s spent more than $200m on produce with local suppliers in 2025.<\/p>\n
Kenny said the company\u2019s app and loyalty programme MyMacca\u2019s continued to grow in popularity, with the company adding mobile order and pay functionality in 2025. The number of loyalty members is commercially sensitive, but Kenny said it serves around 1.5 million people a week.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s delivery option also grew as a percentage of sales in 2025, although the amount is unknown.<\/p>\n
Kenny said the improvements, combined with a strong marketing calendar, enabled McDonald\u2019s to lift share and key brand metrics, while much of the quick-service restaurant and informal eating-out markets were in decline.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the business opened new restaurants in Green Island, Taup\u014d, Lynfield and Dairy Flat, while franchisees also continued to invest in upgrading existing restaurants.<\/p>\n
Property, plant and equipment increased from $309.4m to $357.7m over the year, reflecting that investment in new sites.<\/p>\n
Kenny said McDonald\u2019s hoped to invest around $60m in capital expenditure in 2026, with plans to open at least six new restaurants.<\/p>\n
The recently opened Newmarket site is the 177th restaurant in New Zealand, while the company\u2019s Pakuranga site was reopened on May 29 after a fire tore through the location in May last year.<\/p>\n
On June 7 the company also celebrates its 50th year operating in New Zealand, with its first location being McDonald\u2019s Porirua.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be celebrating that anniversary with customers, franchisees, staff and suppliers throughout the rest of 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A further $635,000 was attributed to licence fees, while service fees, which refers to the monthly royalty-style revenues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[229560,836,27603,2840,806,9218,138,1656,13982,2841,13689,75726,1644,13313,106,17090,19476,10167,117,111,139,69,6270,2171,5340,10270,7493,4739,61,379,80,2963],"class_list":["post-450981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-1087m","tag-836","tag-50th","tag-across","tag-as","tag-before","tag-business","tag-company","tag-continues","tag-country","tag-expansion","tag-fastfood","tag-financial","tag-giant","tag-head","tag-jumps","tag-lifted","tag-mcdonalds","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-office","tag-plans","tag-profit","tag-restaurants","tag-revenue","tag-six","tag-to","tag-year","tag-zealand","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}