Macdonald's Universal Model

If someone was hungry and had nothing to eat during and before the first part of the 20th century, he was just very unluncky. But since the second world war, when the first fast food restaurant (a MacDonald 's one) opened in the 1950s1, we started entering in an era of fast food chains. Everybody, almost everywhere in the world, can find a variety of fast food restaurants in every corner of their street. We can even wait for it in our sofa, with no more need to move, thanks to home delivery. By leaning more particularly on the example of Macdonald 's restaurants, considered here as representative of the fast food restaurants ' model, we will try to understand how this system managed to become an universal model, starting in the United States

It all started with a man, Ray Kroc (1902-1984), behind the franchising of McDonald 's restaurants. Since then, more than 30.000 restaurants have been opened around the world2 and it serves fifty million customers a day, making over twenty billion dollars of revenues in 2006. A simple proof of its success. Indeed, McDonald 's, and fast food in general, has acquired a central place in the American popular culture. A concrete example shows it : when plans were made to raze first Ray Kroc 's Macdonald 's restaurants, hundred of letters were sent to protest. At the end, they rebuilt it and made a museum inside. People feels like fast food , and especially McDonald 's, are part of America. Another indice of its importance is the annual Big Mac Index, published by The Economist3. It indicates where the cost of living is high or low, as well as which currencies are under valued or over valued. It 's based on the local price of the Big Mac and shows the importance of McDonald 's around the world. To go farther, a poll of school age children showed that 96% of them could identify Ronald McDonald, just after Santa Claus. So we can affirm that McDonald 's has become a sacred institution. A real model has been built and it has a long arm. At first, it was a phenomenon in medium-sized cities but then, it 's been also in small cities and in big cities that were supposed to be too sophisticated.

For example, McDonald 's is present in one hundred and eighteen nations. Moreover, fifty percent of McDonald 's restaurants are outside of the USA (it was only twenty five percent in the 1980s), and also half of the revenues comes from its overseas operations. It 's getting even bigger because now, it 's a full circle : other countries than USA also McDonaldized their specialities. Obviously, fast food epitomise capitalism and the consumption society, so we could think that it only worked in the Occidental countries. But this statement would be totally wrong. Indeed the first country where there are more McDonalf 's restaurants is Japan. It 's the leader by far, with 3.828 restaurants at the beginning of 20075. Then there is Canada, with over 1,375 restaurants, due to its obvious proximity with the USA. The third one is Germany, with over 1,200 restaurants. But now, we will take two examples of countries being the antagonism of the USA system and capitalist counsumption society. Let 's start with China, which has been a communist nation during decades. There are currently 780 McDonald’s restaurants in China. They have added 100 new restaurants a year in China and, at the moment George Ritzer wrote his book, they had a goal of 1.000 restaurants by the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But this brand isn 't the most famous one. For example, Yum! Brands operates over 2,000 KFC, and added 400 a year. So it demonstrates two things.