McDonald's Is Giving Its Lemonade A Big Refresh. Here's How It's An Upgrade From The Old One
McDonald's made some big changes in 2024, including improving some key menu items. 2025 seems to be trending in the same direction. On April 8, the Golden Arches announced it's upgrading its lemonade in a big way. The new beverage features very clean, simple ingredients, putting it more on par with the offerings of rivals like Chick-fil-A, whose signature lemonade has only three components: real, not-from-concentrate lemon juice; cane sugar; and water.
Previously, McD's has offered Minute Maid Lemonade in its soda fountains. Minute Maid contains nearly 10 ingredients, including the preservative potassium benzoate and Yellow 5, an artificial food coloring that has been linked to health problems. In stark contrast, the new lemonade making its debut across the Mickey D's landscape contains the simple ingredients of just water, cane sugar, lemon juice from concentrate, lemon pulp, and natural flavors.
The company has been test marketing the new drink in select markets since March 2023. It "quickly became a fan-favorite," according to an announcement about the product on McDonald's corporate website. "Now, it's making its way to the national stage," the announcement further proclaimed.
Is this part of ongoing image renovations for McDonald's?
McDonald's has been making strides in recent years to remove additives from its menu. The documentary film "Super Size Me" brought big scrutiny to the chain in 2004, prompting substantial changes in McD's menu offerings and motivating transformation across the fast food landscape in general. This significant lemonade change seems to be another step along the image reconstruction path for the Golden Arches.
The fast food giant removed artificial preservatives, flavors, and colors from its hamburgers in 2018, as well as nixing the artificial preservatives previously found in McNuggets. Happy Meals have also gotten some upgrades, including efforts to make them a more balanced meal for kids and similar removal of some artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives.
The newly refreshed lemonade will be a permanent menu change (and we are still crossing our fingers for Chicken Selects to be added too). It is available nationwide in the U.S. at participating locations as of April 8, 2025.