When you’re first at something that’s big, or turns out to be big, people are always curious about you. McDonald’s isn’t the world’s oldest or biggest Burger chain, but none has a higher profile. And now, I’ve found a fascinating compendium of the company’s myths, legends and just plain ‘weird stories’…
The Happy Meal: Débuted in 1979 at a cost of just $1, and ultimately
made McD’s the largest distributor of toys in the world.
I recently chanced upon a piece on Mashed.com which must have taken the author weeks to research and write. It’s a very long read, but it encompasses the entire history of McDonald’s, updated to last month (May 2020), focusing not on the chain’s claims to fame but its foibles and fumbles.
Disclaimer: If you’re looking for the at times dark story behind how McD’s went from a one-off in San Bernardino, CA to a world-wide household name, just stream the 2016 film The Founder, which details how milkshake mixer salesman Ray Crok convinced brothers Dick and Mac McDonald to turn their ultra-popular ultra-Fast Food stand into a franchise operation that Crok ultimately took global.
Fascinating…
There’s a saying that, the bigger something is, the easier a target it is for critics, competitors and other sundry nay-sayers. Even the most ardent McDonald’s fans will probably find tibits in The Untold Truth Of McDonald’s that even they didn’t know before. It immediately becomes clear, in the telling, why McD’s tried to keep some of these stories quiet, but when you’re as big as McD’s, it’s also hard to totally sweep anything under the rug. Too many people know and some are bound to tell!
For example…
Did you know that McDonald’s in Japan and China suffered a whopping 10 percent sales drop in 2014 after it was discovered that a Chicken supplier in Shanghai was mixing expired product with fresh stuff? That scandal also affected Burger King and Starbuck’s in Asia – but we never heard about it until now in North America or Europe. A year later, McD’s had to recall a million Chicken McNuggets in Japan after customers found pieces of hard plastic and vinyl in their food. The source of the contamination was never determined.
Did you know that the name of McD’s flagship Burger isn’t trademarked by them in Europe? That’s because an Irish football star named Pat McDonagh had been dubbed ‘Supermac’ by his fans and had already put his name (and a big chunk of start-up cash) into a Burger chain in his home country. After McDonald’s came along and ‘colonized’ Europe, there was a huge court battle over the name ‘Big Mac’, which Supemac’s claimed was too close to its pre-existing trademark. Ultimately, the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office ruled in favour of Supermac’s. That meant that McD’s couldn’t trademark the Big Mac anywhere in western Europe. And they took a really big hit. Again, we never heard about that in North America, outside of the specialized business media the average person doesn’t even know exists.
Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, McDonald’s isn’t the world’s biggest Fast Food chain? Surprise! Turns out Subway has more outlets worldwide; 43,912 locations worldwide in 2017 to McD’s 37,241. Subway was still bigger than McD’s in 2018 in the U.S. reaching 25,800 stores, and by the end of that year, Starbucks had also surpassed McD’s with a total of 14,300 outlets to McD’s roughly 14,000 even.
Did you know that McD’s corporation doesn’t make its money selling food? Well, not directly, anyway. The McD’s head office makes some money selling ‘official’, approved food, promotional and packaging products to its franchisees, but it makes its real money from real estate, owning the land on which franchisees build their stores and leasing it back to them.
And that’s just the beginning
Take your phone or tablet to the bathroom anytime you expect to be in there for a while, and enjoy the Mashed.com story as it was written, in small, easy-to-digest capsules, an incident at a time. One way or another – or possibly both – it will be time well spent!
~ Maggie J.