{"id":21530,"date":"2026-08-31T18:07:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/?p=21530"},"modified":"2026-08-31T18:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:07:57","slug":"mcdonalds-and-taco-bell-are-battling-in-the-afternoon-drink-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/31\/mcdonalds-and-taco-bell-are-battling-in-the-afternoon-drink-war\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald’s and Taco Bell Are Battling in the Afternoon Drink War"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Both chains launched new energy drinks just days apart. The real fight is over who can stand out in a category getting crowded fast. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tBy\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJon Small\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t|\t\t\t\t<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\tedited by\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJessica Thomas\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t|\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tAug 31, 2026\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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McDonald\u2019s <\/a>and Taco Bell<\/a> are duking it out over who gets to wake you up in the afternoon. McDonald\u2019s teamed up with Red Bull this month to launch the Dragonberry Energizer. A few days later, Taco Bell punched back with three new energy refreshers of its own, according to Restaurant Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both chains have been tackling the beverage boom for years, as a wave of upstart chains muscles in on the category too.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s says beverages are already paying off big. The amount a typical customer spends per visit is up roughly 50%, and the drinks are pulling in new customers who weren\u2019t stopping by before. Taco Bell wants beverages to hit $5 billion in sales on their own, enough to rival the entire systemwide sales of chains like Wingstop or Pizza Hut.<\/p>\n

However, neither is really the other\u2019s biggest threat. Chains like 7 Brew <\/a>and Dutch Bros<\/a> are the ones actually sipping away their market share, with 7 Brew alone adding nearly 300 new locations last year while boosting sales per store by a third. McDonald\u2019s has the bigger army, over 13,700 restaurants to Taco Bell\u2019s 7,700-plus, but Taco Bell has Baja Blast<\/a>, the neon-blue drink with a cult following since 2004.<\/p>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both chains launched new energy drinks just days apart. The real fight is over who can stand out in a category getting crowded fast. By Jon Small | edited by Jessica Thomas | Aug 31, 2026 Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. McDonald\u2019s and Taco Bell are duking it out over who gets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/taco-bell-vs-mcdonalds-0826_g2286083553-520154282.jpg?resize=1024,683","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21532,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21530\/revisions\/21532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}