McDonald's to Roll Out 'McNoodles'

McDonald's Corp (NYSE:MCD), the world's number one hamburger chain, will launch two noodle offerings in Austria this week in a world premiere to test consumer demand for the Asian dish, it said on Monday.

"McNoodles" will go on sale at its Austrian restaurants from Thursday in a test set to last two to three months, a spokeswoman said.

The meals feature noodles with vegetables, chicken, salad and either sweet-and-sour or curry sauce, and will cost around 4.99 euros ($6.56).

The company said it hoped to tap a trend toward noodle dishes and show off its ability to innovate by launching the products, which it will import from Thailand.

"We have worked intensively for more than one and a half years in Asia and Austria on development," Hans-Christian Jurceka, product development specialist at McDonald's Austria, said in a statement.

Three-quarters of the products sold by McDonald's Austria are developed locally, and the spokeswoman said the latest experiment was prompted by the growing popularity of noodle dishes here.

U.S.-based McDonald's has 179 restaurants in Austria that generated sales of 515 million euros last year.