By johnnie 
Over the past year, McDonald’s has introduced a slew of new menu items—from the Chicken Big Mac to the massive Big Arch burger—to keep things interesting for their customers.
The Grimace Shake, a special edition purple dessert that sparked an odd TikTok fad last year, became the most renowned of these, although none of them have gone viral to the same extent.
After the Grimace Shake’s enormous popularity in 2023, McDonald’s consumers have been naturally curious if it would return to the menu. Is 2024 really the planned return year for the iconic item? At this time, this is all the information we have.
In June 2023, the shake was first available as a part of the Grimace Birthday Meal, which was created to honor the fuzzy purple McDonald’s mascot. Some consumers reported hints of vanilla and cherry flavor in the limited-edition shake, however the company purposefully remained unclear about the flavor.
An odd TikTok craze in which producers pretended to die in a horror movie-style crash shortly after the shake debuted contributed to its meteoric rise to recognition. Famous people like Courtney Cox got in on the action, and some of the trendiest TikTok videos went viral with millions of views and likes.
An X post from June 27 featured a photo of Grimace with the caption: “meee pretending i don’t see the grimace shake trendd.”
This was McDonald’s way of acknowledging the trend. According to Guillaume Huin, McDonald’s USA’s social media director for brand content and engagement, the firm initially considered not acknowledging the footage since it “took us a bit of time to process what was happening.”
In an X post, Huin claimed that McDonald’s finally saw the “brilliant creativity, unfiltered fun,” and “peak absurdist Gen Z humor” of the Grimace Shake craze after spending time with the videos and fan comments.
Shake the World with the Grimace
Although the Grimace Shake has been absent from American McDonald’s menus since 2023, it did make a 2024 debut in other global locations. It debuted in Canada in May 2024 but spent very little time there before retiring.
The Grimace Shake was then available for a limited time in the UK in late August, giving customers abroad a taste of what was then a popular smoothie. Burger King’s 50th anniversary in the UK was the reason for the limited-time launch.
Lately, beginning in early October, McDonald’s introduced the Grimace Shake to Australia for a limited time. Both the Big Mac (590 calories) and the 10-piece Chicken McNuggets (410 calories) are offered as part of the Grimace Meal, which also includes fries (320 calories per medium order).
In 2024, will the Grimace Shake be back in America?
Even though McDonald’s Grimace Shake has been making an appearance in a few foreign markets this year, the fast food giant has yet to confirm that it would be returning to the US in 2024. We did not receive a response from the chain when we reached out to them for comment regarding the shake’s return to American menus this year.
U.S. fans of Grimace Shake will have to satisfy their sweet tooth temporarily and hope for a relaunch at a later date. At American McDonald’s, they may look forward to a number of new and fascinating items, like the seasonal Boo Buckets and the reintroduction of Pumpkin and Crème Pie (280 calories), among others.