text 2: McDonald s

The practices pioneered and perfected by McDonald s have revolutionized the food service industry and changed eating habits throughout the world. Some 96 per cent of American consumers have eaten at one of McDonald s restaurants during the past year. More than half the American population live within a three-minute drive of a McDonald s restaurant. There are more than 9300 McDonald s restaurants and they handle 17 per cent of all restaurant visits in the United States. McDonald s sells 32 per cent of all hamburgers sold by commercial restaurants and 26 per cent of all french fries in the US.

McDonald s is said to be America s largest job-training organization and one out of every 15 American workers got his or her first job there. Moreover, there are McDonald s in many other countries . Today it is one of the best known “ perhaps the best known “ exponent of American culture.

Yet the story of McDonald s is not very old. It all started in 1954 when Ray Kroc, a 51-year-old entrepreneur, met Maurice (Mac) and Richard (Dick) McDonald in San Bernadino, some 60 miles east of Los Angeles on the edge of the desert. Ray Kroc, who dropped out of school from boredom in the 10th grade, was very enterprising, outgoing and open . During World War I, when he was 15 years old, he lied about his age and volunteered to become a Red Cross ambulance driver in the same company as another under-aged driver by the name of Walt Disney.

Kroc, who had his home in Chicago, was a food service equipment salesman . For many years he sold paper cups, and later acquired the national marketing rights to Multimixers, which were used to make milk shakes. Many hotel bars and lounges, which had lost business through Prohibition, were serving various ice cream and dairy drinks.

The McDonald brothers left New England and moved to California at the time of the Depression. By the mid-1930s cars were becoming a vital part of the new lifestyle. As California weather was warm, drive-ins were introduced and in 1937 the McDonald brothers opened their first tiny drive-in eating place. Three years later they opened a much grander drive-in in San Bernadino, which was becoming a working-class boomtown.

By the mid-1940s the McDonald s drive-in had become the town s most popular teenage hang-out. Although their business was lucrative, the McDonald brothers saw the changes that were taking place. The trend was to reduce staff and to limit the choice of products. They closed their drive-in for three months in the autumn of 1948 and adapted it to the fast-food market. They cut the menu from 25 items to nine, and their kitchen crew became specialized; two people were assigned to make milk shakes all day.

The McDonald brothers drive-in got a lot of attention from people in the business. In fact, before the historical meeting with Ray Kroc, they had 15 franchises. The brothers had a thriving business but they wanted to take life somewhat more leisurely. A week after their first meeting, Kroc called from Chicago to say that he wanted to negotiate a contract that would give him exclusive rights to franchise the McDonald system nationally.

In 1955 Kroc planned his own McDonald s on the outskirts of Chicago, not far from his home. He soon discovered , however, that there were numerous problems in transferring a McDonald s from southern California to the Midwest. The structure was designed without a basement , but Kroc needed space for a furnace to heat the restaurant during Chicago winters. He also needed somewhere to put the potatoes as he could not leave them outdoors the way the McDonald s in California did. Ventilation was also a problem.

In 1961, Ray Kroc asked to buy out the McDonald brothers. They replied that their price was $2.7 million “ in cash in one lump sum. That would give each of the brothers $1 million and leave $700,000 to cover the taxes. It was a very high price, but Kroc was getting more and more desperate. He wanted to get rid of the brothers.

Shortly after Ray Kroc accepted the price he learned from the brothers that their San Bernardino store was not included in the deal. Kroc was furious. As a result, when the agreement was finalized, Kroc flew to Los Angeles and bought a piece of property only one block from the McDonald brothers store with the intention of running them out of business.

When Kroc s new McDonald s opened, Kroc forced the brothers to take down their McDonald s sign and many old customers started going to Kroc s new McDonald s in the belief that it was replacing the old restaurant.

Kroc wanted to establish a fast-food business that was characterized by uniformity and quality service and products. His genius was building a system that required all its members to maintain the same standards. A McDonald s was always a McDonald s no matter where it was located.

(Extract from Americans and the US by Frederic Fleisher, Seminarium 1987)