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McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

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Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#101

Post by altcognito »

linkregister wrote: post #71
msie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems disrespectful to poor, starving people.

1. 40% of food in the U.S. is discarded. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf 2. Much food is never harvested. A large portion of it is also never taken to market due to blemishes. http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/food-waste-rem... 3. Supermarkets discard about 1/3 of their food due to spoilage, blemishes, and overripeness. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/25/351495274/s…

Food that doesn't make it for human consumption at the farm/factory level often finds its way as animal feed.

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#102

Post by altcognito »

linkregister wrote: post #71
msie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems disrespectful to poor, starving people.

1. 40% of food in the U.S. is discarded. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf 2. Much food is never harvested. A large portion of it is also never taken to market due to blemishes. http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/food-waste-rem... 3. Supermarkets discard about 1/3 of their food due to spoilage, blemishes, and overripeness. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/25/351495274/s…

Food that doesn't make it for human consumption at the farm/factory level often finds its way as animal feed.

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#103

Post by ergothus »

logfromblammo wrote: post #78
gjm11 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asshole ? Why? What harm or pain did Ed cause to anyone by throwing the food away?

The temperature of food can be easily changed with the ubiquitous household appliances called "refrigerator" and "microwave oven". And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor. It's like throwing your pants away because you spilled ketchup on them, or throwing your car away because it ran out of gas--trivial issue, easily remedied. Besides that, McDonald's corporate considers the servi…

> And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor.

Leaving aside the rest of the discussion, and not even addressing if throwing it out was good/fine, this line stood out to me.

I often feel that temperature changes the taste. More obvious in ranges > 5 degrees, but still noticeable at that range. Given how subjective taste is, it's hard to prove, though I'm sure some neurologist has hooked a pig or chimp up to try and measure the "taste" reaction. My two questions for you are:

* Do you feel temperature has no real (direct) effect on taste, or only in larger swings than 5 degrees

* Do you have any reason for your above statement than your own experiences? (not a criticism, curiousity)

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#104

Post by noir_lord »

fraserharris wrote: post #88

An important point about owning the franchise real estate: a rental agreement is far stronger for the landowner than a franchise agreement is for a franchiser. The McDonald's franchise agreement specifies the address the franchise must be located. In effect, McDonald's can cancel a franchise agreement by ending the rental agreement. This gives them enormous power to enforce company-wide standards on cleanliness and m…

Certainly noticeable in the UK, the variance between one BK and another can be huge where McD's is so consistent it's hard to tell who owns which.

McD's are masters at standardising 'generally acceptable in a pinch' food.

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#105

Post by baby »

Diamons wrote: post #49
pitt1980 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you might enjoy: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2484147-lessons-... from Ed Weissman (who's #6 in overall karma on HN)

Enjoyed the read overall but one line stuck out: "- I take one bite out of my cold Big Mac and eat one cold fries and throw it all out." You have to be a special kind of asshole to throw away meat and food instead of just saying the food is cold.

I worked at McDonalds and we would throw burgers after X minutes if they didn't sell. Can't remember what X was but we were throwing a lot of . Same thing with fried stuff like mcnuggets except we would wait longer before throwing it. I don't know why we were following the rules for burgers but not for fried stuff... It all seemed like waste to me because X was pretty short. But this was to ensure good quality, crunchiness and all that jazz. Mind you that it was not a franchise and it was in France (where McDonalds restaurants have higher standards).

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#106

Post by emodendroket »

sqeaky wrote: post #100
emodendroket wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just knew some smartass was going to liken Santa Claus to God.

Both are fictional, believed by a large demographic and don't instantly signal insanity, just gullibility. Gullibility, which is what we were talking and why advertising to children is bad. If we started teaching our kids to do things like try to test for Santa they would be more likely to come to correct answers for the rest of their lives, and in general be less gullible.

Whatever you say.

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#108

Post by mbrookes »

fraserharris wrote: post #88

An important point about owning the franchise real estate: a rental agreement is far stronger for the landowner than a franchise agreement is for a franchiser. The McDonald's franchise agreement specifies the address the franchise must be located. In effect, McDonald's can cancel a franchise agreement by ending the rental agreement. This gives them enormous power to enforce company-wide standards on cleanliness and m…

> Other chains (ie: Burger King) have had more significant problems with enforcing franchise standards.

Why have Burger King in particular had this problem?

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#109

Post by deanmen »

mbrookes wrote: post #108
fraserharris wrote: post #88

An important point about owning the franchise real estate: a rental agreement is far stronger for the landowner than a franchise agreement is for a franchiser. The McDonald's franchise agreement specifies the address the franchise must be located. In effect, McDonald's can cancel a franchise agreement by ending the rental agreement. This gives them enormous power to enforce company-wide standards on cleanliness and m…

> Other chains (ie: Burger King) have had more significant problems with enforcing franchise standards. Why have Burger King in particular had this problem?

They meant to put e.g.

Re: McDonald's Real Estate: How They Really Make Their Money (2015)

#110

Post by Retric »

ergothus wrote: post #103
logfromblammo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The temperature of food can be easily changed with the ubiquitous household appliances called "refrigerator" and "microwave oven". And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor. It's like throwing your pants away because you spilled ketchup on them, or throwing your car away because it ran out of gas--trivial issue, easily remedied. Besides that, McDonald's corporate considers the servi…

> And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor. Leaving aside the rest of the discussion, and not even addressing if throwing it out was good/fine, this line stood out to me. I often feel that temperature changes the taste. More obvious in ranges > 5 degrees, but still noticeable at that range. Given how subjective taste is, it's hard to prove, though I'm sure some neurologist has hook…

It's well known that the current temperature changes the taste. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/temperature-can-eff...

But, I think his comment was changing the temperature is easy, and having food get cold does not change the taste after reheating. However, there is a large food safety issue with how long food stays between 40f and 140f, which is probably the root cause of this policy.

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