Disinformation » McDonald’s

McDonald’s Discontinues Use Of ‘Pink Slime’ In Burgers

JacobSloan — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:00:38 +0000

No more slimeburgers? Until recently, 70 percent of burgers in the United States contained “pink slime”, also known as ammoniated boneless lean beef trimmings, a cheap beef filling unfit for consumption until it is gassed with ammonia. Now McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King are dropping the magic additive following a campaign of withering criticism from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Via the Argus Leader:

McDonald’s and two other fast-food chains have stopped using an ammonia-treated burger ingredient that meat industry critics deride as “pink slime.” The product remains widely used as beef filling in burger meat, including in school meals.

The beef is processed by Beef Products Inc. in Iowa and in three other states. One of the company’s chief innovations is to cleanse the beef of E. coli bacteria and other dangerous microbes by treating it with ammonium hydroxide.

“Basically, we’re taking a product that would be sold at the cheapest form for dogs, and after this process we can give it to humans,” food activist Jamie Oliver said in a segment of his ABC television show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, that aired last spring.

BPI, which once boasted of having its product in 70 percent of the hamburgers sold in the country, has lost 25 percent of its business. McDonald’s has been joined by Taco Bell and Burger King in discontinuing use of the product, and the company is worried other chains and retailers will follow them.

McDonald’s Accounted For Half Of May’s Job Growth

JacobSloan — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:50:00 +0000

If you’re looking for a job, McDonald’s is the place to go. No really, it’s the only place for you to go. The Atlantic Wire writes:

We were joking when we wrote that McDonalds was singlehandedly reviving the U.S. economy by hiring 62,000 employees in a single day in April. At the time, it didn’t feel like the recovery hinged on the creation of low-paying, temporary McJobs. Well, on the heels of today’s pessimistic report saying that just 54,000 jobs were added in May, the fast food chain’s effect on the economy is looking impressive to MarketWatch.

Seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000.

Those 25,000 to 30,000 McJobs that Morgan Stanley estimated were the net additions that would amount to half of the jobs added in May. That said, we have not seen an updated Morgan Stanley estimate of the McDonalds effect since the May jobs report was issued today. But, if those estimates hold, it’s pretty striking.

McDonald’s Transgender Beating

jayurbzz — Sun, 01 May 2011 13:30:12 +0000

Not sure what’s more shocking, the beating itself or the employees warning the women to get out before the police come as the victim has a seizure… From the Daily News:

The victim of a vicious beating at a Maryland McDonald’s is a transgendered woman, according to a LGBT advocacy group that’s calling for authorities to investigate the case as a hate crime. [Warning: Video footage may be disturbing to some people]

The shocking video, which went viral on the Internet this week, shows the woman being kicked in the head by two girls at the Rosedale fast food chain as some of the staff stood by laughing.

At one point the attackers grab the victims’ hair and dragged her across the floor. Responding officers who responded to Monday’s attack found the 22-year-old woman apparently having a seizure…

[continues in the Daily News]

Sign of the Times: McDonald’s Received Over 1 Million Applications During Recent Hiring Event

BananaFamine — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:27:24 +0000

To put this in prospective, according to Tampa Bay Online, 1 in every 188 Floridians applied. Leslie Patton writes for Bloomberg:

McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), the world’s biggest restaurant chain, said it hired 24 percent more people than planned during an employment event this month.

McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.

The April 19 national hiring day was the company’s first, said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. She declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. McDonald’s employed 400,000 workers worldwide at company-owned stores at the end of 2010, according to a company filing.

The number of applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. rose last week, a sign that progress in the labor market may be fading. Jobless claims increased by 25,000 to 429,000 in the week ended April 23, the most in three months, according to data from the Labor Department in Washington today…

Ronald McDonald Kidnapped – Ransom Demanded

majestic — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:49:49 +0000

A group calling themselves the Food Liberation Army has kidnapped Ronald McDonald and has a list of demands for McDonald’s. If the fast food megacorp fails to meet the demands god only knows what the ruthless Finns will do to him…

We are the Food Liberation Army, and we hope that this extreme action will take us towards a better and safer food future.

Two days ago we kidnapped Ronald McDonald from a McDonald’s Restaurant. If you do not answer all the questions we will execute Ronald on Friday February 11, 2011 at 6:30PM EET.

We love burgers, fries and McDonald’s, but we can no longer watch silent when the food we love is being destroyed and brought to shame because of greed and indifference. Because of your short-sightedness your burgers have become nearly inedible.

That is why we want to help McDonald’s to save food. We made you a list of questions we want you to answer. We hope that your answers will make you understand the dilapidation of the food culture we love and the appropriate measures.

1. Why are you not open about the manufacturing processes, raw materials and additives used in your products? What are you afraid?

2. How many tons of un-recycled waste you produce per year? Why do you not publish that figure?

3. Do you operate with unethical actors, such as illegal immigrants? Why?

4. Why do not you take responsibility of your culinary consequences? Why do you not seek to prevent obesity, diabetes and their ramification deceases?

5. Why do you not just use ethically produced meat? Do you not think it should be a goal for everyone to serve meat of an animal that has has had a good, clean and drug free life? Why is it not your goal?

6. Why is cheap production cost your main value?

7. Do you think your only goal is to maximize your owners´s profits? What do you think would happen if you begin to produce quality to your customers?

8. You are big and global player that reaches a significant part of the earth’s people. Why do you use your power to short-sightedly maximize profits and not to create a better world ?

We are not alone, but represent a rapidly growing population. We have moved quickly towards better quality and ethicality of consumption. It is in your interest to answer our questions publicly, and develop your activities through them. Only this way you will survive in the future. Listen to our message and the Move. We will reward you by eating more of your burgers.

You have until Friday February 11 at 6:30PM EET to respond to freedomronald@gmail.com.

Silence is interpreted a negative answer. Have a nice day.

Thanks to Kim N. for sending this to us. She writes:

Check this out. Have been trying to figure out if this was guerilla marketing from McD or hilarious practical action.

As far as I can say it seems genuine, I found out that McD has asked police to start investigation.

Anyway if they publish execution of kidnapped Ronald on next friday we will have first imaginary casualty on war on terror.

McDonald’s, CBS, Mazda, Microsoft Sued For Tracking Internet Users’ Histories

JacobSloan — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:04:20 +0000

Always remember — the vacant, shining, plastic eyes of Ronald McDonald are upon you. A lawsuit claims that internet users’ browsing histories are tracked and shared among corporations that use the data to tailor advertising. Via MediaPost:

A New York resident who recently sued behavioral advertising network Interclick for allegedly violating her privacy by using history-sniffing technology has filed a related lawsuit against McDonald’s, CBS, Mazda and Microsoft.

In a complaint filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sonal Bose alleges that McDonald’s and the other companies “acted in concert with Interclick,” to mine users’ Web surfing history for marketing purposes. “Defendants circumvented the privacy and security controls of consumers who, like plaintiff, had configured their browsers to prevent third-party advertisers from monitoring their online activities,” Bose alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that the companies violated the federal computer fraud law, wiretap law and other statutes. She is seeking class-action status. This lawsuit comes several weeks after Bose sued Interclick for allegedly using history-sniffing technology and Flash cookies to track her online activity.

History-sniffing technology exploits a vulnerability in browsers to discover the Web sites users previously visited. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego recently brought the technique to light when they published a paper explaining the technique and naming 46 Web sites where history-sniffing technology was being deployed. In at least some cases, ad company Interclick reportedly used the technology without the publishers’ knowledge.

Bose also says in her complaint that she believes that the defendants used Flash cookies for tracking purposes. Flash cookies are stored in a different place in the browser than HTTP cookies, and therefore, require additional effort to delete.

New Years Resolution, Diets And Obesity

Pelliciari — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 22:25:38 +0000

New Years is a celebration of starting over, the time when many people make resolutions to improve the following year. The most popular resolution in America is to lose weight and be more healthy. According to disinformation’s book 50 Facts That Should Change the USA, written by Stephen Fender, it is also the least kept resolution. With Fact #40: 65% of American adults are overweight, 30% are obese, and these proportions are growing, Americans should reconsider how they keep their resolutions throughout the whole year:

65% of American Adults Are Overweight, 30% Are Obese, And These Proportions Are Growing

“I myself am very well in body, mind spirits, quite stout,” an immigrant wrote from Pittsburgh to his brother back in Manchester, England in 1837. “I weigh 182 lbs so you may think how I am, a man of my size. Am very corpulent.” Those were the days—when fat was a sign of success and prosperity. What he meant was that he had made it in the New World, and left the lean years in the Old forever.

Nowadays, of course, fatness means something very different. For us the sight of people waddling through shopping malls, trying to squeeze into a booth in an all-you-can-eat-for-$14.95 restaurant or spreading out across two seats in a crowded bus brings out all kinds of disapproval. We take it as a sign of slovenly living, laziness, lack of exercise, ignorance of proper eating, even a sort of moral collapse.

Like poverty, to which it is related, obesity is a comparative measurement. According to the American Obesity Association, source of these headline figures, anyone with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 is overweight. From 30 to 39.9 you are obese and suffering from a clinical condition. Over 40, you are severely obese and probably need a forklift truck to get around. Severe obesity has risen too—from 2.9 percent of the population in 1988–1994 to 4.7 currently.

Obesity is not just a matter of appearance and convenience. The medical effects can be pretty horrendous too. By 2006 it was killing some 400,000 Americans a year, just a shade behind, and rapidly catching up with, the total for cigarette smokers, 435,000, as the chief cause of preventable death in the country. Killer diseases associated with obesity include Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and—in postmenopausal women—breast cancer. Less immediately threatening but still serious are osteoarthritis, decreased fertility in women due to menstrual irregularities, and obstructive sleep apnea—that is, loud snoring and irregular breathing during deep sleep, causing excessive daytime sleepiness, personality changes, decreased memory, impotence and depression.

Though an increasing phenomenon in many developed countries, obesity is now an acute problem in the U.S. Why in America especially? The usual explanation is that we eat too much convenience and fast food loaded with fat and carbohydrates, and get too little exercise. Given that many of us would drive our cars to bed if only we could get them up the stairs, there may be something in this simple reasoning. But simple answers won’t do for a country so ready to believe in dastardly plots perpetrated by “them”—in this case the global food industry and fast-food moguls.

According to the paranoid explanation, what really makes us fat are monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable protein and other taste-enhancers added to American convenience foods. These stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin, which in turn promotes the body to lay down fat. They also stimulate cravings, leaving us wanting more of the same. This notion satisfies because it seems to explain so much. MSG or other so-called “excititoxins” are in virtually everything Americans eat, from canned soups and frozen prepared meals, to proprietary gravies and salad dressings—not to mention nearly every menu item on fast-food outlets like Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Taco Bell. But then again, so are the fats and carbohydrates that actually do the business.

With obesity so widespread, you’d think we’d at least try to keep our children from getting fat. But excess weight seems to run in families. According to the American Obesity Association, “around 30 percent of children aged from six to nineteen are overweight, and another 15 percent are obese.” No doubt the chief element in this sorry statistic is the family diet, but in case mothers want to keep their kids from eating badly, the convenience and fast-food producers are making their own end run round the parental line, appealing to the next generation directly via television. With kids now responsible—either directly or through nagging power over parents—for over $500 billion spending annually, anti fast-food campaigner Eric Schlosser has written, “American children now see a junk food ad every five minutes while watching TV.” Maybe there’s some point to that paranoia after all.

But all this debate over causes and effects ignores another factor connected with American obesity. What the usual obesity sources fail to mention is that poverty in America has been increasing at more or less the same rate (though at a lower level) as obesity. Present levels of American poverty stand at 34.5 million people, or 12.7 percent of the population. This figure includes 13.5 million children.

Furthermore, obesity and poverty are linked. This sounds counter-intuitive. We are used to images of poverty in the form of thin-faced children with their ribs showing staring out of an appeal for African aid. Even the experts seem to have been taken aback by this recent discovery, since they have labeled the phenomenon “the hunger-obesity paradox.”

The real surprise is why the connection between poverty and obesity should have come as such a surprise. It’s obvious that poor households are going to buy the tastiest and most filling foods they can find on a limited budget. That means sugary soft drinks, pizza, doughnuts, hamburgers and salty, starchy snacks like pretzels and potato chips. When whole days go by without enough food, the body stores up fat to tide it over through the “lean” period. This may be the vestige of a hunter-gatherer metabolism.

In his study, “Does Hunger Cause Obesity?” W. H. Dietz cites the case of a mother on food stamps who didn’t have enough money to satisfy her daughter’s hunger for half of every month. For the remaining two weeks she would make up the difference with high-fat, high-starch, filling foods. The seven-year-old girl was 220 percent the normal weight for her age and size.

The writer Fujioka Kim, who quotes this example, points out that a woman and two children driving home from the supermarket could take the edge off their appetites with a 16 ounce bag of potato chips costing $1.99 and a bottle of soda bought on sale for 99¢. For the same money they could have bought three apples and a quart bottle of soy milk. Far fewer calories, more nutrition. Ms. Kim offers a few “easy, inexpensive but healthy recipes” from her own Japanese American background. These include “ninjin salad”—shredded raw carrot with lemon juice squeezed over it—and “hiya-yakko”—tofu (bean curd) covered with chopped scallions, ground sesame and a few drops of soy sauce.

Well, maybe sensible eating will catch on even among the poor. But the economic pressure of poverty and the emotional response to it, especially when children come into the equation, form a complex dynamic of motivations which would be condescending to expect to play like an instrument. If poor people don’t feed their children “sensibly,” that isn’t necessarily because they are stupid or uninformed about good nutrition. Apart from the economic hurdles in the way of low-calorie, high-nutritional eating, there is what we might call the “treat factor” to consider. Parents may feel the need to give their kids a treat to make up for things missing elsewhere in their lives.

One place to test the treat factor is in the fast-food market, since it is here that people eat as a break from their routines. Increasingly sensitive to the criticism that they were undermining the nation’s health with hamburgers, french fries and sweet drinks, fast-food outlets began to introduce “healthy options” like fresh fruit and vegetables to their menus. McDonald’s began to add “fruit ‘n’ walnut” salads and grilled (instead of deep-fried) chicken, to the range offered, later pushing the health-agenda envelope out to carrot sticks and toasted deli sandwiches.

As a result—apparently—McDonald’s Corp.’s earnings for January to June 2006 jumped by 17 percent over the previously half year. But two months later, after 29 years with the company, Mike Roberts, the chief backer of these innovations, suddenly resigned, leaving seasoned observers of the industry puzzled. Did he know something they didn’t know?

Maybe he doubted whether the healthy revolution could last. Already parts of this extremely fast moving market have turned against healthy eating at the fast-food outlets. “We listened to consumers who said they wanted to eat fresh fruit,” said a spokesman for Wendy’s, “but apparently they lied.” Now hamburgers are meatier, cheesier, thicker than ever, and there’s not a blade of lettuce in sight—let alone tofu topped with soy sauce and spring onions. Hardee’s now offers a “Monster Thickburger” consisting of two beef patties, each with cheese and bacon on top. Burger King has gone two better, with their new “Stacker Quad”—four layers of hamburger, and cheese, topped with bacon, packing in as much saturated fat as three Big Macs. And sales are singing.

San Francisco Bans McDonald’s Happy Meal

Pelliciari — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:47:06 +0000

San Francisco has enacted a law prohibiting restaurants from giving toys away with high-fat and sugary meals, including the American staple: the Happy Meal. This was done in hopes that children won’t opt for unhealthy food just because they receive a toy as well. The New York Daily News reports:

The McDonald’s Happy Meal went the way of Prop. 19 in San Francisco Tuesday when the city’s board of supervisors voted to forbid restaurants from offering toys with meals that contain too much fat and sugar.

Restaurants would also need to provide fruits and vegetables with meals that come with free toys. The city said the measure was an effort to combat childhood obesity.

“We’re part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice,” Supervisor Eric Mar told the Los Angeles Times. “From San Francisco to New York City, the epidemic of childhood obesity in this country is making our kids sick, particularly kids from low income neighborhoods, at an alarming rate.”

The rule, scheduled to take effect in December, says that restaurants may include a toy with a meal it contains fewer than 600 calories – food and drink combined — and if less than 35% of the calories come from fat, The Times reported.

McDonald’s spokeswoman Danya Proud said in a statement that the company was “extremely disappointed” with the decision.

Continues at New York Daily News …

McDonald’s Tells Employees They Must Vote Republican For Raises

JacobSloan — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:47:32 +0000

Whoops, turns out it’s actually illegal to bribe/threaten your employees into voting the way your company wants. ThinkProgress writes:

This election season, a local McDonald’s franchise in Canton, Ohio is telling employees how to keep the company happy: vote Republican. Along with their recent paychecks, employees received a pamphlet on company letter head that stated “if the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected we will not.”

McDonald’s Food Is Immortal!

majestic — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:56:31 +0000

Photographer Sally Davies has stirred up a lot of interest in the weird science that goes into making McDonald’s “food” resistant to decay. She has an amazing series of photos at her flickr site where you can see daily progress, or lack thereof, of an ageing McDonald’s Happy Meal (example below).

Photo: (c) Sally Davies (www.sallydaviesphoto.com)

According to New York Magazine’s Grub Street blog, Davies plans to keep the experiment going “until something happens, but she’d better be ready for a long haul: A twelve-year-old McD’s burger surfaced a few years ago looking shockingly well-preserved”!

McDonald’s Death Video

majestic — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:02:10 +0000

I’m no fan of McDonald’s, and as Morgan Spurlock proved, eating too much of the processed junk they pass off as food is calamitous for your health … but this ad from the nonprofit vegan group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine takes criticism of Mickey D’s to a whole new level!

A Happy Meal 137 Days Later

JacobSloan — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:30:01 +0000

Artist Sally Davies runs the classic, terrifying “McDonald’s burger time-lapse” experiment. The goal of course is to see how long it takes food from McDonald’s to alter in appearance even the slightest bit. At 137 days and counting, this meal looks identical to how it did at the time of purchase. Via Refinery 29:

Asterix – French Comics Hero – Endorses McDonald’s

majestic — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:35:27 +0000

As you might expect, the French are more than a little testy about the offending ad, shown at right, part of a BETC EuroRSCG publicity campaign for McDonald’s. Report from Reuters:

A new McDonald’s ad featuring Gallic champion Asterix enjoying a burger and fries has sparked outrage among French comic purists who see it as an insult to their national heritage.

The billboard shows the fearless Gaul and friends celebrating their traditional banquet at the fast-food chain — with Cacofonix the bard tied to a tree outside as usual.

“My childhood hero sacrificed like a wild boar! What next? Tintin eating at Subway?” said one horrified blogger called sirchmallow.

“How ironic, the indomitable Gauls making an advert for the invaders,” was another outraged comment on Twitter.

The ad is of three designed by advertising agency Euro RSCG for McDonald’s’ “Come as you are” campaign…

[continues at Reuters]

Ohio Woman Flies Into a Rage Over Lack of McNuggets (Video)

ralph — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:37:44 +0000

Feed me! Feed me! WTF lady, it’s not even real chicken … The AP via Google News reports:

TOLEDO, Ohio — A security video from a McDonald’s in Ohio shows a woman punching two restaurant employees and smashing a drive-thru window because she couldn’t get Chicken McNuggets.

The tantrum caught on tape in Toledo earlier this year shows the customer reaching through the drive-thru window, slugging one worker and then another. She then grabs a bottle out of her car and tosses it through the glass window before speeding off.

It happened early on New Year’s Day. Police say Melodi Dushane was angry that McNuggets weren’t being served, because it was breakfast time.

McDonald’s Not So Happy Meals

majestic — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:10:13 +0000

Looks like Mickey D’s is about to undergo another round of public and media lashing now that childhood obesity is a major priority in Washington. As the Los Angeles Times reports, a watchdog group says giving away toys with Happy Meals contributes to childhood obesity and threatens to sue:

Weeks after a Silicon Valley county became the first in the nation to ban toys from McDonald’s Happy Meals and other food promotions aimed at children, a public health watchdog group called on the fast food giant to remove the playthings from all its meal packages.

Citing toys aimed at promoting the latest “Shrek” movie, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the plastic promotions lure children into McDonald’s restaurants where they are then likely to order food that is too high in calories, fat and salt.

The organization on Tuesday served the fast food giant with a letter expressing its intent to sue if toys are not removed. The letter is legally required in several states, including California, before lawsuits can be brought under consumer protection statutes.

“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” Stephen Gardner, litigation director for the advocacy group said in a statement. “McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity.”

McDonald’s disagreed strongly with that characterization, saying that its meals were “right-sized for kids” and that it offered healthful choices. Toys, said spokesman William Whitman, are “just one part of a fun, family experience at McDonald’s.”…

[continues in the Los Angeles Times]

Could McDonald’s Replace Beef Burgers With Seitan? Would Anyone Notice?

ralph — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:39:47 +0000

Nick Aster writes on triplepundit:

I sometimes like to write harebrained posts postulating some kind of zany idea. So here’s today’s:

I ate at an airport McDonald’s the other day for the first time in ages. It was at once delicious and disturbing. I looked at the beef. Was it really beef? I mean, seriously, it was definitely some kind of beef-flavored-matter, and the advertisement did say 100% beef. But as I walked off with that greasy post-McDonald’s flavor (that lasts for hours) in the mouth, I got to thinking: that patty was almost no different than the wheat or soy-based stuff used to make vegan food (seitan and so on).

I walked away 100% convinced that McDonald’s could replace all its beef with beef-flavored seitan and NO ONE would notice the difference. McDonald’s would save a fortune, health would be improved, and the carbon and resource footprint of McDonald’s would be massively slashed.

Does anyone think I’m right?

It’s not that I’m against eating meat in moderation. But everyone knows that eating lots of meat, especially the highly processed, ultra cheap, ground beef McDonald’s uses, is not healthy. Not only that, but it’s phenomenally costly to the environment at large. Read some Michael Pollen if you need to catch up.

Mapping The American Burger Wars

majestic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:09:48 +0000

The excellent WeatherSealed by Stephen Von Worley graphically illustrates the battle for dominance in the American fast food stakes:

Imagine, if you will, the burger force – a field of energy that radiates from every freshly-cooked patty, earth-penetrating and inverse-squared with distance, compelling the hungry carnivore to seek out and devour the well-done ground beef at the source.

Now, wrap that concept in a Star Wars motif – set in the present day, with the second-tier burger chains as the rebels – each, by themselves, without mutual aid, battling the 12,000-plus restaurant McEmpire. The situation is most dire, for the upstarts control but a few significant islands of territory amid the overwhelming and darkly-rendered influence of the McForce:

Territory controlled by the eight largest U.S. burger chains.

In this and the following graphic, each individual restaurant location has equal power. The entity that controls each point casts the most aggregate burger force upon it, as calculated by the inverse-square law – kind of like a chart outlining the gravitational wells of galactic star clusters, but in an alternate, fast food universe.

By far, the largest pocket of resistance is Sonic Drive-In’s south-central stronghold: more than 900 restaurants packed into the state of Texas alone. Sheer density is the key to victory!

The rebels already have the numbers – over 24,000 locations in total – but they’ve divided and conquered themselves by strict adherence to the peacetime principles of brand identity and corporate structure. This is war, and for the sake of self-preservation, all must be sacrificed! …

[continues at WeatherSealed]

Weight Watchers Endorses McDonalds

majestic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:52:54 +0000

How to destroy your brand fast! As reported in the Guardian:

McDonald’s is hardly an ideal dining location for anyone struggling to stay slim. But the fast food chain scored a PR coup today when Weight Watchers agreed to endorse some of its products in New Zealand – a move met with outrage by nutritionists and obesity experts.

As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald’s will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald’s to dieters.

The link-up is the fast-food chain’s latest attempt to improve its reputation by securing endorsements. In January, to the horror of gastronomes, Italy’s agriculture minister, Luca Zaia, helped launch the McItaly range of burgers. For a representative of one of the world’s greatest culinary nations to do such a thing was “a sign of the moral bankruptcy of Silvio Berlusconi’s government”, wrote Matthew Fort in the Guardian.

Several items on the fast food giant’s menu – the Filet-O-Fish, Chicken McNuggets and Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken Wrap – have been approved for the Weight Watchers diet in McDonald’s 150 New Zealand restaurants. Each meal is worth 6.5 points on the programme, which assigns points to food items and allows dieters to consume 18 to 40 points each day to achieve their goal weight.

McDonald’s New Zealand managing director, Mark Hawthorne, said: “We were able to include some of our most popular items because of the many changes we have made over the years.

“For instance, the switch to a healthier canola blend cooking oil means items such as the Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets contain 60% less saturated fat than six years ago.

Chris Stirk, Weight Watchers’ director of business in Australia and New Zealand, said the partnership between the companies reflected “part of our philosophy that you can enjoy life … while still achieving your weight loss goals”.

But nutritionists and obesity experts said the menu items were a marketing ploy to lure customers into the restaurant…

[continues in the Guardian]

Star Wars Teams Up With… Ugh… McDonalds

majestic — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:08:15 +0000

Great commentary by Killer At Large producer Bryan Young, in the Examiner:

Perhaps I have a different perspective on this than a lot of people, but I’ll explain it and hopefully you’re all with me on this.

Star Wars is doing a Happy Meal promotion with McDonald’s for their Clone Wars series starting Februrary 26th. (More information on that here). The 8 year old in me jumps for joy. The parent in me is filled with disappointment and disgust. My kids aren’t allowed to eat food of such poor quality and now I’m going to have to tell them they can’t have these Star Wars toys because I refuse to buy them junk food.

I understand that this makes sense from a marketing perspective, but the problem is that marketing junk food to kids with beloved characters and properties like Star Wars is morally reprehensible. I spent two years making a documentary about the American obesity epidemic called Killer at Large, and one of the things we found responsible for the sharp rise in overweight and obesity in today’s children is marketing directly to them to get them to nag for food and products that aren’t good for them (like McDonalds Happy Meals). We talked to Ralph Nader, Dr. Susan Linn, and Douglas Rushkoff about the insidious nature of these messages for the film and I’m convinced that they have no place in our culture…

[continues in the Examiner]

McDonald’s In Guantanamo Bay

JacobSloan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:10:47 +0000

Did you know there’s a McDonald’s In Guantanamo Bay? It’s true. They’re currently hiring for the position of assistant manager. Notice how the listing avoids referring to Guantanamo by name, instead calling it “the United States Naval base in Cuba.” Apparently, no special security clearance is need for the job, just a desire to “Enjoy the perks.”

McDonald’s Louvre Opening Takes the Heat

majestic — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:01:37 +0000

McDonald’s is making its way to the Louvre next month. Some media sources are outraged by the move, but others wonder why not?