Big America burgers back in Japan

(courtesy of McDonald's Japan.)

A year after its successful "Big America" campaign in Japan, McDonald's is back with more burgers designed to evoke the tastes of Texas, Idaho, Miami and Manhattan.

The "Big America 2" campaign will run through the first quarter of 2011, according to McDonald's Japan, and there are high hopes that it will be as well received by the burger-buying public as the previous variants, which represented New York, California, Hawaii and Texas. This time round, the company said, they have tweaked the Texas burger's ingredients.

"We did the first Big America campaign in January of last year with four products themed in U.S. cities," Junichi Kawaminami, a spokesman for the company, told Relaxnews. "And because the products were so popular - we sold 4.13 million Texas burgers, about 2.2 times more than we expected - we decided to do another campaign."

The updated Texas 2 burger is a stack of a meal that includes a quarter-pound beef patty, chili beans, cheese, bacon, onion and a grainy mustard relish sauce all packed between three buns.

The Idaho burger will be released in late February and uses the same mustard sauce with bacon and onions atop a fried hash-brown potato patty, a quarter-pound beef burger, a slice of cheese and a peppery sauce.

When the Idaho burger ends its run in mid-February, its place on McDonald's menus will be taken by the Miami burger, which will be available through mid-March and features the quarter-pound beef patty, lettuce, tortilla chips, grated cheese and a spicy tomato chili sauce.

The final offering will hit restaurants in mid March, is known as the Manhattan burger and is a souped-up version of last year's New York burger. This one comes with a slice of mozzarella cheese, lettuce, onions, a strip of pastrami and a sour-cream sauce.

Each of the burgers is being sold individually for Y400 (€3.67) or as a set with fried potatoes and a drink for Y720 (€6.61).

McDonald's operates 3,720 restaurants across Japan and controls 65 percent of the burger market here. Domestic firm Mos Burger is the second-largest company, with 1,334 outlets, followed by Freshness Burger and Lotteria. Burger King has 16 restaurants since returning to Japan in 2007.

McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Tokyo's Ginza district in 1971.

JR