The McRib Mystery Solved

Until recently I had myself convinced that I didn't like eating ribs. One night I decided to try them, and now I feel like I have wasted years of my life not eating them. But ribs from McDonalds, I am still not too sure about. McRib is a sandwich of legend. The heavenly blend of pork patty, barbecue sauce, and bun is, to devotees, so addictive that songs have been written about it, Internet shrines erected to it, and TV shows dedicated to it. Still, I am deathly afraid to try it... 

Initially test-marketed in 1981, the McRib was the brainchild of McDonald’s first ex­ec­u­tive chef, Rene Arend, who’d been plucked from the kitchen of a local luxury hotel and tasked with increasing the franchise’s menu options. Arend’s most industry-altering achievement would prove to be the creation of the Chicken McNugget in 1979. And it was the success of the nugget that necessitated the immediate invention of the McRib. “The McNuggets were so well received that every franchise wanted them,” says Arend, now an 80-year-old retiree living in Chicago. “There wasn’t a system to supply enough chicken. We had to come up with something to give the other franchises as a new product. So the McRib came about because of the shortage of chickens.”

The McRib’s direct inspiration was Southern BBQ, more specifically pulled pork.
But instead of pulling his pork, Arend decided to give the meat its legendarily absurd shape: Even though it contains no bones, the patty is molded to resemble a miniature rack of ribs. “Some thought, Why not just make it round?” recalls Arend. “It would’ve been easier. But I wanted it to look like a slab of ribs.”

Contrary to what its name implies, there is very little actual rib meat in a McRib. “Primar­ily, it’s shoulder meat,” explains Rob Cannell, director of McDonald’s U.S. supply chain. “The McRib is made in large processing plants—lots of stainless steel, a number of production lines, and these long cryogenic freezers. The pork meat is chopped up, then seasoned, then formed into that shape that looks like a rib back. Then we flash-freeze it. The whole process from fresh pork to frozen McRib takes about 45 minutes.”

Since the McRib is a promotional sandwich, as opposed to a full-time menu item, each individual restaurant gets to decide whether or not to stock it. Hence the scarcity that has made it the Halley’s Comet of fast-food entrees.

You can actually find the McDonald's that are carrying the sandwich with the McRib Locator Map.

After the McRib rolled out nationwide in 1982, McDonald’s learned the sandwich worked best as a limited-time offering. Its restricted availability has become a marketing tool. A few years back McDonald’s even launched a highly publicized Farewell Tour, announcing that the McRib was about to disappear forever, only to bring it back the following year for another Farewell Tour. McDonald’s sold 30 million of them in 2007, totaling more than seven million pounds of pig meat.

Colin Cowherd from ESPN payed tribute to the McRib in song...