McDonald’s to start selling all-day breakfast

McDonald’s Corp. plans to start selling all-day breakfast across the U.S. on Oct. 6, bowing to a longstanding request from customers.

The company’s franchisees have voted to approve the plan and it is being implemented nationwide, according to a statement from McDonald’s spokeswoman Lisa McComb. The move follows months of testing the idea at various locations. In July, Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook said the all-day breakfast trials were going well, fueling speculation that a national rollout was near.

Easterbrook, who took over in March, has been trying to pull the company out of its biggest sales slump in more than a decade. Selling its signature Egg McMuffin sandwich all day could increase sales by as much as 2.5 percent a year, according to an internal company presentation earlier this year.

Daniel Delligatti, the chain’s national advertising fund chairman, told franchisees last month that the company was planning a marketing push to promote the move.

“Based on preliminary test results, all day breakfast is a significant business opportunity and a marketer’s dream that leverages our strengths and will generate positive media news and social media energy for brand McDonald’s,” he said in an e-mail.