10 Facts You Didn't Know About McDonald's McRib

Much like the arrival of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, the limited-time appearance of the McDonald's McRib sandwich is a holiday unto itself for fast food aficionados. Even those who don't particularly like the McRib know of its cornmeal-dusted bun, its slivered onions, its sliced pickles, its dripping gobs of barbecue sauce, and the strangely serrated shape of its pork patty. Regardless of where you land on the McRib's "love it" or "hate it" spectrum, this classic promotional item has become a cultural phenomenon.

The McRib's origin story came from the barbecue culture of the American South. In the late 1970s, McDonald's CEO Ray Kroc tasked the restaurant's executive chef René Arend to kick off the 1980s with some new menu items. At the time, Arend was visiting South Carolina, where pulled pork sandwiches and barbecued ribs led him to take a cue from these comfort food classics — and the McRib was born. Much like the recently promoted Chicken Big Mac, the McRib has had a bumpy history since its invention. That said, these lesser-known facts about the sandwich's history show how the McRib became a milestone of fast food culture.

Before he created and debuted the arguably more popular chicken McNugget, René Arend brought the McRib to fruition in 1981. It was first tested in Kansas City, Kansas, for a year before it was released nationally in 1982. According to Retroist.com, the McRib received less-than-stellar reviews upon its release — "McFlop" was a popular term among the journalists of the time. It remained on the menu for a few years before McDonald's decided to pull the sandwich in 1985.

Only a few years later, however, McDonald's business was booming. It reported an earnings total of $727 million in 1989, which was also the year it sold its 75 billionth burger somewhere amid its 22 million daily customers. McDonald's marketed the McRib as a "barbecue in a bun," and it sold for a mere $1.69. It wasn't popular enough to remain on the menu as a permanent item, but it did plant the seed for many up-and-coming fast food apologists, such as Allison Robicelli from The Takeout. 

One of the most iconic aspects of the McRib is the unique shape of its protein. It has the foundational shape of a burger so it can fit nicely on the slightly longer hoagie roll, but its form also includes ribbed crenulations that mimic the appearance of barbecued baby back ribs. While many diners have puzzled over the shape of the McRib patty, it's actually the result of technology that was developed by the U.S. Army.

In the 1960s, the Army was looking for ways to save money on food production. As meat preparation and packing presented an expensive obstacle for the Army to overcome, it turned to Natick Army Labs in Massachusetts. Roger Mandigo, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor and meat scientist, pioneered a technique that processed low-cost meat trimmings with sodium and fat. The final product can then be formed into shapes and frozen for distribution — it's the same technique that gives McDonald's chicken McNuggets their distinctive shapes.

In an interview with NPR, Mandigo credited McDonald's with inventing the rack of ribs shape. His original McRib prototype looked like a pork chop, but Mandigo said that McDonald's wanted it to "look like the boneless part of a backrib." Mandigo's breakthroughs in the field of meat processing were so influential that he was inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame in 2010.

A lot of attention goes into the visual aesthetics of the McRib sandwich — the hoagie bun, the faux-rib shape, the onions — but what about this barbecue sandwich's signature sauce? During the McRib's return to McDonald's menus in 2024, the fast food restaurant packaged half-gallon bottles of McRib sauce for individual sale. Branded as "A Whole Lotta McRib Sauce" and retailing at $19.99, these jugs of tangy holiday cheer sold out within minutes, with all proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House.

While it's uncertain whether McDonald's will run this promotion again, true fans of the McRib's sweet and tangy flavor profile can do a lot to recreate this condiment at home. According to Mashed, the best brands to capture that McRib magic are Hunt's Original Barbecue sauce or Bull's Eye Sweet & Tangy. Home chefs can also recreate the McRib sauce with a straightforward blend of ketchup, molasses, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, onion powder, garlic powder, and a few smoky spices.

The true litmus test of a cultural icon comes from its ability to inspire creativity among its ambassadors. In the McRib's case, we have Xanthe Pajarillo of Santa Clarita, California. Dubbed the "Bob Dylan of processed BBQ pork" by one YouTube commenter, Pajarillo's tale began like many an oppressed troubadour. When her local McDonald's franchises decided not to feature the McRib during its 2015 promotion, Pajarillo appeared before the Santa Clarita city council to appeal this miscarriage of fast food justice.

Her entire appeal is available via YouTube, but Pajarillo's primary argument was that the McRib sandwich was an integral part of her family's Thanksgiving celebration. Per Pajarillo's explanation, her family would order a large amount of chicken McNuggets and McRibs as their holiday dinner. Without the McRib, Pajarillo claimed that her "family's holiday spirit is kind of messed up and broken."

When the city council did not right this wrong, Pajarillo penned "The McRib Song (McRib Blues)" and performed it on her YouTube channel. In its maudlin composition, the pink-haired McRib activist tells her tragic tale by way of acoustic guitar and harmonica. Though the song didn't change the hearts of her local McDonald's franchises, it successfully captured the longing of someone unable to take advantage of a limited-time offer. These days, Pajarillo is an up-and-coming filmmaker who chronicled her days as a McRib activist in the short film "We Want McRib."

When McDonald's re-released the McRib in 1989, it was exclusively added to the existing burger menu as a limited-time item during the subsequent years. However, when 1995 rolled around, McDonald's made plans to feature the McRib as a permanent menu item. The McRib's mid-90s resurgence was announced through a marketing campaign that tied in with the Universal Studios film adaptation of "The Flintstones," which was released in 1994.

The McRib remained on McDonald's menus until its "farewell tour" in 2005, which offered fans a final opportunity to get their hands on a McRib. According to QSR, this farewell tour brought the McRib back to select McDonald's locations across the country and launched a website that included pork trivia and an unsuccessful petition to keep the sandwich on the menu.

When the McRib came back to menus in 2022, McDonald's used the farewell tour marketing campaign once more as a way to drum up sales for its inevitable departure. Like the 2005 farewell tour, the marketing messaging seemed to imply that the McRib would be gone for good, though we all knew it wasn't getting relegated to McDonald's permanent naughty list. Since then, the McRib has had a fairly consistent schedule of appearing on McDonald's menus as a promotional offer.

While many American McRib fans have to say goodbye to the sandwich every year, McDonald's locations in Germany and Luxembourg enjoy the sandwich year-round. These two European countries are the only geographic locations where the McRib does not host farewell tours only to disappear for who knows how long. The reasons for this phenomena are the subject of speculation, but suffice to say that the McRib sandwich was extremely popular in these particular European markets upon its initial release. Based on that popularity, McDonald's locations in Germany and Luxembourg have continued to feature the McRib since its 1989 re-release.

One reason for this popularity is likely tied to Germany's long history of pork production. According to German-meat.org, the country exports more than 2.3 million tons of pork to over 100 countries, making it one of the largest pork producers in the world. As Germany is also one of the largest pork consumers in Europe, it would make sense that its local McDonald's fans would have a soft spot in their hearts for this porcine innovation. Its presence in Luxembourg is likely linked to German pork imports, but let's not forget that this small European country is the birthplace of McRib inventor René Arend. It's poetic to think that the McRib remains on the McDonald's menu as a tribute to the country's meat processing pioneer.

According to Forbes, McDonald's decision to re-release the McRib as a limited-time promotion checks off all the boxes of good marketing. The key to the McRib's success is its exclusivity — it feels like a special event whenever it hits McDonald's menus and it causes a media uproar in its wake. The fact that McDonald's hasn't billed the McRib as a seasonal item also helps with its exclusivity, since no one really knows when it will be on menus again.

Not only does the implied scarcity of the McRib help drive sales, but it's also a great ace in the hole for when McDonald's needs to mix things up with its menu. According to CNN, McDonald's and brands such as Starbucks like to have these limited-time promotions as a way to refresh the customer's perspective. Or, in the case of McDonald's, create a positive, hype-driven marketing campaign as damage control for a widely publicized E. coli outbreak.

McRib aficionados Alan and Kimberly Klein were such fans of the sandwich that they developed the McRib Locator, an online repository of user-generated tips on where you can find a McRib sandwich throughout the year. Not only does this website pinpoint the location of a participating McDonald's location, but it also offers a pricing average so users can see where to get the best deal on a McRib during the promotion. The concept works by providing nationwide users with the ability to upload the location of a McRib sandwich near them, and the site requests an uploaded receipt for verification.

While the site map does get to booming when the national McRib promotion is in full swing, it's a useful page to have bookmarked if you're ever traveling out of your home state or are out of the country when that McDonald's craving hits. Keep in mind that around 95% of McDonald's restaurants are local franchises. Most franchises will stick with the corporate playbook, but you never know which ones might deviate from the national strategy if it suits their local business. 

In a 2003 episode of "The Simpsons" titled "I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can," Homer Simpson himself gets a little taste of McRib fever — though in the fictional town of Springfield, it's called a Ribwich and sold by Krusty Burger. As the episode progresses, a sauce-slathered Ribwich mascot lures Homer inside, where he soon becomes addicted to the promotional item. The episode also lampoons the process that gives the McRib its signature shape in a Krusty Burger commercial that plays during the episode's cold open.

While the show doesn't pull any punches when making fun of the McRib, having a version of it show up at all is a good indication of the sandwich's cultural impact. "The Simpsons" has remained one of the longest running television shows in American history because of its ability to guide its creative crosshairs to the deepest facets of the country and pull the trigger. So, when Homer devours a dozen Ribwiches and salivates to the extent that the beleaguered cashier has to call for a "drool cleanup," he's just showing McRib fans that he gets it.

Over the years, the McRib's cult following has been well-documented on Reddit. In r/McRibReddit for example, users post any McRib-adjacent news that has come across their radars, along with photos, recipes, and tips on increasing the longevity of the popular sandwich. One user with the handle of smellybassist abjured the subreddit for tips on how to stockpile frozen McRib patties. Between the McRib Locator and r/McRibReddit, fans of the sandwich have some great resources once the McRib inevitably leaves McDonald's menus.

The McRib's popularity and cult following have also inspired several members of the creative community to create and sell art based around the sandwich. The Etsy marketplace has plenty of notable arts and crafts inspired by the McRib. For those who find the McRib aesthetically pleasing, the Open Range McRib by OctopusCrime sets the meaty sandwich amid a pastoral landscape. Those who want to include the McRib in their holiday decorations will want the McRib-inspired tree ornament by FoodieOrnaments.

Whether it's folk anthems, "Simpsons" episodes, or online McRib locators, it's no secret that the McRib has solidified itself as a true icon of American fast food culture. Though it took a bit of time to find its footing, The McRib continues to remind us that it's never too late to reinvent oneself.