Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [166]
90 percent of the country’s new jobs: Cited in Macdonald and Sirianni, Service Society, p. 1.
4 An estimated one out of every eight workers in the United States: Cited in “Welcome to McDonald’s,” McDonald’s Corporation, 1996.
annually hires about one million people: This is my own estimate, based on the following: McDonald’s has about 14,000 restaurants in the United States, each employing about 50 crew members; a conservative estimate of the turnover rate among McDonald’s crew members is about 150 percent; having a workforce of roughly 700,000 and an annual turnover rate of 150 percent requires the hiring of about 1 million new workers every year. In its promotional literature, the Mc-Donald’s Corporation claims to have “surpassed the U.S. Army as the nation’s largest training organization.” Given how McDonald’s actually “trains” its workers, I have used the word “hires” as a synonym. See “Welcome to McDonald’s.”
the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes… the second largest purchaser of chicken: See Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 3–4; Mark D. Jekanowski, “Causes and Consequences of Fast Food Sales Growth; Statistical Data Included,” USDA Food Review, January 1, 1999. McDonald’s role as the leading pork purchaser was described to me by a pork industry executive who prefers not to be named.
the largest owner of retail property in the world: See Bruce Upbin, “Beyond Burgers,” Forbes, November 1, 1999; Love, Behind the Arches, p. 4.
earns the majority of its profits: McDonald’s has an unusual franchise arrangement, serving as landlord for its franchisees and adjusting lease payments according to sales levels. About 85 percent of the McDonald’s in the United States are operated by franchisees. See Emerson, New Economics of Fast Food, pp. 59-62; Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 154–57; “Welcome to McDonald’s.”
spends more money on advertising and marketing: Interview with Lynn Fava, Competitive Media Reporting.
the world’s most famous brand: See “McDonald’s Wins Top Spot in Global Brand Ratings,” Brand Strategy, November 22, 1996.
more playgrounds than any other private entity: Its nearest rival, Burger King, operates about one-quarter the number of playgrounds.
one of the nation’s largest distributors of toys: According to the British newspaper the Evening Standard, in 1998 McDonald’s purchased 1.3 billion toys from Chinese manufacturers. Cited in Lachlan Colquhoun, “McDonald’s Soars to Success in Chinese Fast Food Market,” Evening Standard, October 21, 1999.
96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald: Cited in “Welcome to McDonald’s.” The only fictional character with a higher degree: Max Boas and Steve Chain express some reservations about the accuracy of this study, which was conducted by McDonald’s, but I find it credible. A more recent study, conducted by an independent market research firm, found that at least 80 percent of the children in the nine foreign countries surveyed could recognize Ronald McDonald. See Boas and Chain, Big Mac, p. 115; Love, Behind the Arches, p. 2; and “Barbie, McDonald’s Find Common Ground,” Selling to Kids, September 30, 1998.
more widely recognized than the Christian cross: A survey by a marketing firm called Sponsorship Research International — conducted among 7,000 people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, and Japan — found that 88 percent could identify the golden arches and that 54 percent could identify the Christian cross. The most widely recognized symbol was the interlocking rings of the Olympics. See “Golden Arches More Familiar Than the Cross,” Plain Dealer, August 26, 1995.
5 “the McDonaldization of America”: Jim Hightower, Eat Your Heart Out: Food Profiteering in America (New York: Crown, 1975), p. 237.
“bigger is not better”: Ibid., p. 3.
the final remains of one out of every nine Americans: Cited in Erin Kelly, “Death Takes a Holiday,” Fortune, March 15, 1999.
“We have found out… that we cannot trust”: Quoted in Love, Behind the Arches, p. 144.
6 America’s largest private employer: The health