Mcdonalds started off as McDonald’s Bar-B-Q in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. Ran by Dick and Mac Mcdonald it was your typical drive-in with a large menu and car hop. In 1948 they altered their restaurant to a self-service drive-in. The menu reduced to 9 items including burgers, soda, milk, chips, pie and coffee. In 1958 Mcdonald’s sells their 100 millionth hamburger and in 1959 they opened their 100th restaurant In 1962 they became the first resturant with indoor seating.Toledo, Ohio opens the 500th restaurant in 1963. Ronald Mcdonald made his first appearance on Tv in 1966 with a one minute “flying hamburger” commercial on NBC and CBS networks. IN 1971 Hamburglar, Grimace, Mayor McCheese, Captain Crook and the Big Mac joined Ronald in McDonaldland. Philadelphia Eagles’ football player Fred Hill led to the first Ronald McDonald House when his child was being treated for Leukemia in 1973. in 1978 the 5,000th resturant opens in Kangawa, Japan. In 1983 McDonalds was now located in 32 countries around the world. November 20,2002, McDonalds claimed to be World Children’s Day aka McHappy Day. McDonalds has raised more $170 million during the McHappy day events. As of 2011 McDonald’s now operates in 119 countries.
McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson recently suggested the company would support President Obama raising the federal minimum wage from 7,25 to 10.10 an hour. But such an increase in wage still wouldn’t satisfy some of it’s workers such as the ones found in Oak Brook Ill. who swarmed their headquarters demanding $15 an hour. Thompson who made 9.5 million in 2013 while the $9 an hour worker only made $19,000. A worker would have to work two month just to make what Thompson makes in one hour ($3,200). Thompson sees the affect of poorer customers not having enough money to buy stuff and national minimum-wage spike could put more money in the pockets of low-wage workers across the country. This will indicate more money for people to spend at McDonald’s The conversation side complains though. They think raising minimum wage would cause companies to lay off workers and jack up menu item prices which would initially hurt the economy. According to the McPoverty Calculator created by The Daily Beast the Big Mac would have to increase by 22 cents for a worker to make $15.23 an hour ( $31,671.83 a year)
Between the years 2004-2011 McDonald’s used Lean Finely Textured Beef also known as “pink slime” to numerous customers. This beef was treated with ammonia which gave it that pink slime look. Today all of the beef is USDA inspected and meets or even exceeds USDA standards. It is 100% ground beef which is formed into patties and then flash frozen. Although the beef does come from cattle who are treated with added hormones to promote growth. This is a common practice for farmers. None of their burgers are made until you order it. They grill their patties as needed throughout the day, seasoned with salt and pepper, which then are placed in a warming cabinet for up to 15 minutes.
Brad Haley, chief marketing officer for CKE Restaurants states “We don’t make what we want to sell.” He then continues “There’s a reason there are so many successful hamburger chains in this country and so few successful salad chains.”(qtd in Ferdman) Companies like McDonald’s , Burger King and Wendy’s are amongst the top of the burger chain. Customers don’t go to a fast food burger chain and order salads which makes it not as easy for chains to sell healthier food. After customers begged Burger King for their chicken fries back, the company recently began selling the fries since discontinuing them in 2012. But even so, Chipotle has shown customers will go to a restaurant that has certain values ( like high standards for their meat suppliers). Marion Nestle, a professor at N.Y.U. says “Food companies aren’t inherently bad,” then continues “But they respond to demand, and people don’t always want what they should.”(qtd in Ferdman)
McDonald’s has partnered with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to increase customer’s ability to choose fruits and veggies. Along with that they have provided customers the choice when choosing a meal to have a side salad, fruit or vegetable substituted for the fires. Their Happy Meals are only promoted with water, milk and juice. They use in-store and external advertising that ensures 100 percent fun nutrition or a children’s well-being message that produces excitement for fruits, veggies and low-fat dairy within the Happy Meal. They’re also limiting the amount of calories shipped to schools. President Bill Clinton says “We’ve seen voluntary agreements with industry have profound impact — including our work with the beverage industry to limit the amount of calories shipped to schools. Those agreements resulted in a 90 percent reduction in total beverage calories shipped to schools between 2004 and 2010.”( McDonald’s – Official Global Corporate Website) McDonald’s will continue to take these actions in 20 of their major markets representing more than 85 percent of their global sales.
Work Cited
Baertlein, Lisa. “UPDATE 3-McDonald’s Workers Protest Low Wages, More than 100 Arrested.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 21 May 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
“Burgers & Sandwiches :: McDonalds.com.” Burgers & Sandwiches :: McDonalds.com. McDonald’s, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Ferdman, Roberto A. “Why It’s Not Enough for Fast Food Companies to “give Consumers What They Want”.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Gongloff, Mark. “McDonald’s CEO: ‘We Will Support’ A Minimum Wage Hike.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 4 June 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
“History of McDonald’s Restaurants :: AboutMcDonalds.com.” History of McDonald’s Restaurants :: AboutMcDonalds.com. McDonald’s, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
“McDonald’s – Official Global Corporate Website :: AboutMcDonalds.com.” McDonalds. McDonald’s, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
“Our History.” :: McDonalds.com. McDonald’s, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
This was really interesting to read and caught my eye as a reader because of the topic. I really liked the information you provided and had a lot of good facts to back up the general questions/theme of the paragraphs. I could tell what each paragraph was about and it was separated in a good way and didn’t run into each other or were similar. You have a lot of information and well written work that is all included in your work cited which is good. The quotes are good from the sources, everything looks pretty good to me. I guess all I could suggest is that there is a lot of facts and things thrown at you and it’s a lot to keep up with, like it goes from one fact to another, maybe you could change that in some way? Considering this was a rough draft it was very well written and had all the requirements I think, all it needs is the picture and maybe the other paragraphs (if you were planning more, which if not maybe include one involving the citizens opinion?), overall this was a very good annotation!
Good choice of topic, and a good range of questions/issues related to McDonald’s: history, minimum wage controversy, pink slime meat, the last two paragraphs seem somewhat overlapping though, about controversy about whether McD should offer healthier options. Maybe you could include a more general para on fast food industry to replace one of those similar paras? Or something about french fries or use of nutritional info?
(As Erica points out, that first para. esp. throws at reader a lot of facts, some of which don’t seem closely connected except as part of large McD timeline.)
A few other things to consider in revision:
–Your paragraphs tend to jump to specific detail without first establishing the main point of para. Adding clearer topic sentences would help orient reader. (We can talk about this in class–ask me if you want more explanation.)
–As I said in class, you rely too much here on McD’s own site for info. Look for some more credible, objective sites–much has been written about McD, so it shouldn’t be hard to find some better quality sources. (I’d appreciate if you could use hyperlinks here for titles–again, ask if you need a reminder of how to do that.) Some of webpages from McD’s site not quite right–looks like EasyBib error in not picking up correct title of page.
–The other main thing you need to work on is adding in-text citations. You’ve got the quoted ones done (though make sure to put period *after* the closing paren, not before opening paren). However, you also need in-text citations for any specific factual info you got from a particular source. Note that all of the sources in your Works cited page should appear somewhere as an in-text citation in the body of your report.