McDonald's changed its vanilla ice cream and nobody noticed

NEW YORK - McDonald's made some major changes to the main ingredient in its McFlurries last year and nobody noticed.

The Golden Arches began phasing out artificial flavors in its vanilla ice cream in fall 2016, in an effort to check off another item from its to-do list.

Over the past year, McDonald's has been ditching artificial ingredients from some of its menu items. The restaurant has already removed artificial preservatives from Chicken McNuggets, and it removed high fructose corn syrup from its buns.

The company said Thursday that its ice cream, which is used in more than 60 percent of McDonald's dessert items, was already free of artificial colors and preservatives before it made any changes.

"Last summer alone, our customers enjoyed 68 million cones at McDonald's," Darci Forrest, senior director of menu innovation at McDonald's, told CNBC in an email. "We worked closely with our culinary team to ensure taste was not impacted." The full rollout of the new ice cream to the more than 14,000 U.S. locations is "nearly completed," Forrest said.

McDonald's has also received a sales boost from its new variety of Big Macs and its series of discounted beverages.

Source: CNBC.