The Big Mac Index worked because a Big Mac is a Big Mac. Same bun, same two patties, same brand standards, sold in dozens of countries. That single property turns a sandwich into a measuring stick. The FoodMenu Price Index applies the same idea to a much bigger basket: 249 products, 34 brands, eleven markets, all drawn from full published menus rather than one hand-picked item.
What the index actually measures
Every menu in our database is stored as structured data: an item, its size options and the price of each, attached to a country and a currency. That makes one specific question answerable at scale - does this exact product exist somewhere else, and what does it cost there?
A product enters the index when the same brand sells it under the same normalised name in four or more of our markets. The cheapest published option in each market becomes that market's entry price, and each local price is converted to US dollars at weekly mid-market rates. Nothing is estimated and nothing is filled in; if a market does not publish a price, that market simply is not in that product's row.
The four-market floor is deliberately conservative. It throws away genuinely comparable products that a chain happens to rename at the border, and we accept those misses rather than risk lining up a 100g patty against a 150g one because both are called a cheeseburger.
The country league table
The headline output is not a single item. It is a score per market: for every indexed product a country sells, how its price compares with the average price of that same product across all markets that sell it. A country is only ever judged on products it actually stocks, so an unusual local menu is not punished for the items it leaves off.
| Market | Products compared | Average price | vs all-market average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philippines | 142 | $4.00 | −42.4% |
| Malaysia | 107 | $5.23 | −16.3% |
| Thailand | 113 | $6.63 | −9.4% |
| New Zealand | 93 | $5.26 | −6.8% |
| Canada | 136 | $6.49 | −4.7% |
| United States | 109 | $8.11 | +3.4% |
| Australia | 102 | $7.83 | +13.7% |
| Hong Kong | 97 | $8.30 | +14.1% |
| Ireland | 96 | $7.71 | +20.7% |
| Singapore | 119 | $8.55 | +22.4% |
| United Kingdom | 133 | $8.11 | +27.1% |
Two things stand out. First, the spread is enormous: the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive market in this table is roughly 70 percentage points. Second, the ordering is not the one most people would guess. The United States, the home market of most of these brands, sits almost exactly at the average - While the United Kingdom is the most expensive market we track for the same branded products.
The tax asterisk, up front
Part of that British result is a labelling convention rather than a real difference. UK, Irish, Australian and New Zealand menu boards print prices with VAT or GST already inside them. American boards do not; sales tax is added at the till and varies by state and city. So a transatlantic comparison of published prices is not comparing like with like, and any US figure in this index is effectively a pre-tax number.
Read this before quoting a number
The index does not adjust for sales tax treatment, portion size, recipe, what is included in the box, or local wages. It answers "what does this cost in dollars", not "is this expensive for the people who live there". The full rule set is on the methodology page.
The products worth trusting most
Not every row in the index is equally solid. The ones to lean on are the products with the widest coverage, because a ten-market average absorbs a single odd data point far better than a four-market one.
| Product | Markets | Cheapest | Priciest | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Five Guys Cheeseburger | 10 | $3.24 | $16.47 | $11.25 |
| Five Guys Hamburger | 10 | $2.74 | $15.07 | $10.03 |
| Five Guys Little Hamburger | 10 | $1.93 | $11.74 | $7.87 |
| Subway Italian B.M.T. | 10 | $3.65 | $8.49 | $5.76 |
| McDonald's Filet-O-Fish | 10 | $1.78 | $5.71 | $4.21 |
| Starbucks Caramel Macchiato | 9 | $2.67 | $6.95 | $4.97 |
Look at the shape of those ranges rather than the endpoints. The Filet-O-Fish spans about three times from cheapest to dearest, and the Italian B.M.T. only about two and a third. Those are tight, believable global bands for a mass-market product. Five Guys is a far wider spread, which tells you something real: it is positioned as an everyday burger in some markets and a premium import in others.
Why the widest gap is rarely the best story
The index can be sorted by spread, and it is the most entertaining view. It is also the one most likely to mislead. A large spread can mean genuine market positioning, or it can mean one market's data is unusual - A promotional price captured on the day, a smaller portion sold under the same name, or a product that is a loss-leader in one country and a speciality item in another.
A wide gap is a question, not an answer. The useful next step is always to open both menus.
That is why every index row links straight through to the underlying menu pages. If the Super Supreme looks implausibly cheap in one market, you can open that market's Pizza Hut menu and see the size options for yourself.
How often the numbers move
Two clocks run at different speeds. Local prices change when a chain reprints its boards, which is a matter of months. Exchange rates change daily, and we refresh them weekly. That means a product can appear to jump 8% in dollar terms without a single restaurant changing a single price.
We handle this by storing the local price as the permanent value and treating the dollar figure as a view over it. Every index page shows the local currency first and the date the rates were last refreshed. If you are citing us, cite the local price.
What to actually do with the index
Three uses hold up. For travel, it tells you whether the familiar chain in your destination is a bargain or a tourist tax - Worth knowing before you eat six meals at one. For research, it gives a consistent, sourced basket rather than an anecdote. And for ordinary curiosity, it settles the argument about whether coffee really is cheaper somewhere else.
What it will not do is tell you where food is affordable. That question needs local wages, and it is the subject of our guide to why the same burger costs different amounts. For the cheapest markets in raw dollar terms, start with the cheapest countries for fast food.
