New York —

McDonald’s, which has focused on improving its core products to boost sales, is implementing a series of changes designed to improve its signature burgers.

The buns will be softer. Cheese, stickier. The onion will be added to the burgers directly on the grill. And the Big Mac sauce? There will be more.

“We’ve found that small changes, like adjusting our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting grill settings for better browning, add up to a big difference in making our burgers tastier than ever,” chef Chad Schafer, senior director of culinary innovation at McDonald’s USA, said in a statement Monday. The improvements apply to the Big Mac and the McDouble burger, as well as the classic cheeseburger, double cheeseburger and hamburger.

The improvements were first made to the burgers in international markets, the company said, and have already arrived in some U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix and Las Vegas. They will be available nationwide early next year.

The changes follow other improvements to key menu items.

In 2018, McDonald’s announced it would switch to fresh meat for its Quarter Pounders, a complicated move with big sales benefits. In 2021, it launched a crispy chicken sandwich to replace previous versions, a relatively late arrival to the chicken sandwich wars, but one that appears to have resonated with McDonald’s customers. .

“We’re gaining market share in both chicken and beef,” thanks to better burgers and products like the chicken sandwich, McDonald’s ( MCD ) CEO Chris Kempczinski said during a call with analysts in January. “In an environment where our customers look for simple and familiar, our core menu items have never been more relevant,” he said. In the US, sales at stores open for at least 13 months increased 5.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022, up 10.3% for the full year.

Focusing on promoting your core menu items, rather than introducing new products, is one way to simplify processes and reduce friction in the kitchen. And McDonald’s has been using promotions like celebrity food platforms and the Adult Happy Meal to generate buzz around its signature items.

“Throughout 2022, some of our most successful campaign platforms brought our customers closer to core menu items,” Kempczinski said during the January call.

McDonald’s isn’t the only brand trying to improve its core offering.

Burger King, which last year announced a plan to turn around its business, has focused on improving the Whopper and making it more visible in advertising. In the fourth quarter of last year, it conducted Whopper training for franchisees. The brand said in February that the Whopper contributed to higher U.S. sales in that quarter.