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McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

latimes.com

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Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#461

Post by ta12653421 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #204
ta12653421 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one who downvoted me obviously has a problem with high quality food. Animals held and then sold for 4-5 EUR per kg is pure shit. Period. I would rather eat groceries instead. Most people have no idea what high quality meet is because they buy their stuff always at large chains - remember: None of the sustainability-interested local farms sells to any of those supermarkt chains. You have to GO there to get your st…

The folks that this article is about are not the sort of folks who can afford €18/lb for protein. In the US, at least, cheap chicken can often be identified as it cooks up with a woody texture or suffers from a variety of visual defects. Out here I can't think of any farms selling chickens directly to consumers. More well regarded farms like Petaluma Poultry do, in fact, sell to the big chain grocery stores and that'…

well.... Im not in the US :-)

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#462

Post by Telaneo »

johnisgood wrote: post #378
abracadaniel wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandmother cooked daily and taught her kids to cook. My mother cooked weekly and taught us to use the microwave. Sure anyone can learn to cook, just like anyone can learn to play the piano, but it requires time, money, dedication, and the push to get started. It’s much easier if you were taught some of the basics as a kid, or had an example in your life.

It still baffles me that people compare cooking to playing an instrument. It really is not that difficult to cook, depending on what it is. Do people know how to make schnitzel (breadcrumbed meat)? Make fries? Make rice? Make boiled potatoes? Or are those things difficult as well? Making a stew out of legumes is not that difficult either. Boil your legumes, then mix eggs, flour, and paprika together, put it in oil, h…

It's not difficult per se, but you can't throw anyone into a kitchen and expect food to be made as a result. You still need to be taught to some extent. The bar is a lot lower than playing an instrument or many other things, but there's still a bar below which (edible) food will not be made. If you've never been taught and never went out of your way to learn, you won't know how to.

Some people get out of school not being able to read and write, at least to any meaningful degree. The fact that some people get out of school not being able to cook thus shouldn't be surprising.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#463

Post by anon291 »

xg15 wrote: post #291
lotsofpulp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

Where is the next cheap lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables fast food restaurant? I think it's a weird concept of a society where all the parts of it with money are directing people to do one thing - but at the same time, the people are expected to do the exact opposite and it's their own fault if they follow the coercion...

Yogurt and nuts are available ready to eat at gas stations and grocery stores.

As someone who would take a yogurt parfait over most McDonald's items , I have no idea why you think it's not available.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#464

Post by anon291 »

johnisgood wrote: post #311
xg15 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the next cheap lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables fast food restaurant? I think it's a weird concept of a society where all the parts of it with money are directing people to do one thing - but at the same time, the people are expected to do the exact opposite and it's their own fault if they follow the coercion...

There are such restaurants around here in Europe but they are super expensive, so you are better off doing it on your own at home. Cooking a stew of lentils or any other legumes is very easy and does not consume that much time either, and you can cook for 3 days easily. Why are people not doing this?

Fast food is an addiction not nutrition. Some people develop the addiction and the restaurants feed it.

Normal food behavior is to eat until satiated. We've pretended it's normal to gorge yourself at McDonald's and such because saying otherwise makes some people feel bad.

People adopting normal food behavior aren't going to be drawn to eating at such a restaurant. The food that's been mentioned is trivial to make at home and requires less time than going out.

In places where there's enough mass of people to actually make this worthwhile (mainly Asia), there's tons of options, but no large ones.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#465

Post by anon291 »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #430
xg15 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the next cheap lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables fast food restaurant? I think it's a weird concept of a society where all the parts of it with money are directing people to do one thing - but at the same time, the people are expected to do the exact opposite and it's their own fault if they follow the coercion...

Instant pot is like $80. throw in a cup of lentils, some frozen veggies and some rice/potatoes and you can chill while it cooks you a meal in an hour.

I am without a kitchen for the last month (remodel) and I just use my microwave. There's nothing magic about cooking. Take cold things and make them hot. How are people managing to be this daft? You can cook rice, pasta, lentils, etc in a bowl and a microwave.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#466

Post by anon291 »

gyomu wrote: post #230
lotsofpulp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

Insert classic Michael Pollan “if you see it being advertised, it’s likely something you shouldn’t be eating”. No one’s advertising spinach or beans.

Your local grocery store almost certainly is. Zucchini was $1 at Safeway last mknth

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#467

Post by anon291 »

fragmede wrote: post #409
GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not anti-social, it is pro-social. To stand for the right of people to live freely, for children to get an education and to socialize with their peers, for businesses to serve their communities and provide jobs for people to feed their families. You are the anti-social one, who would condemn entire populations to house arrest based upon dubious-at-best ideas. In my city, even outdoor gatherings of more than five…

Basic logic here: the things you’re defending only work when the people who make them possible aren’t getting knocked out by uncontrolled spread. Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill. You can absolutely critique the execution and the results. Plenty…

Early on , it was clear the rate of covid complications did not merit the lockdowns. I was an early supporter of lockdowns and an even earlier supporter of ending them. It was a cold... Can we say that now? A relatively moderate flu like cold for the vast majority of people. It did not merit shutting down or slowing global trade

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#468

Post by silisili »

listenallyall wrote: post #405
silisili wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hilarious because your comment is exactly their goal. McDonald's is laser focused on low income customers. They do not want to compete in the middle income space, as they don't visit as often and there's ton more(and better) competition. Their CEO has been blunt about this recently, and trying to find ways to get low-income customers back. Dire straits ahead for them, they've priced themselves into a plac…

Terrible take. Of course they want middle-income customers, that's a big part of why they raised prices, because they thought middle-income would absorb them. And they arent entirely wrong - those drive-thru lines are still miles long at peak times, mostly parents getting an entire family's dinner. However middle-income is still price sensitive and notice when $30 becomes $50+. Executives talk about appealing to "val…

It's not that they don't want middle class customers, of course that would be foolish. It's that they don't want to be positioned there. The CEO has made this abundantly clear.

Their financial reports are a better source of truth than anecdotes. Q1 was an absolute disaster, Q2 surprisingly OK, Q3 missing expectations but not terrible. This is not where they want to be, regardless of lip service. They will not thrive in this space, as Wendy's has found out. IMO Wendy's was the de facto try 'middle/lower middle class' fast food option.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#469

Post by fragmede »

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #434
fragmede wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic logic here: the things you’re defending only work when the people who make them possible aren’t getting knocked out by uncontrolled spread. Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill. You can absolutely critique the execution and the results. Plenty…

[flagged]

Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance. Day 1 was when we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments, and hospitals were already buckling from basic spread. Opposing mitigation at that moment wasn’t foresight, it was ignoring exponential math.

You can absolutely argue the execution was messy and the fallout was real. Lots of people agree with that. But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in. The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist. Day 1 without them didn’t magically support the world staying fully open.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#470

Post by johnisgood »

anon291 wrote: post #464
johnisgood wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are such restaurants around here in Europe but they are super expensive, so you are better off doing it on your own at home. Cooking a stew of lentils or any other legumes is very easy and does not consume that much time either, and you can cook for 3 days easily. Why are people not doing this?

Fast food is an addiction not nutrition. Some people develop the addiction and the restaurants feed it. Normal food behavior is to eat until satiated. We've pretended it's normal to gorge yourself at McDonald's and such because saying otherwise makes some people feel bad. People adopting normal food behavior aren't going to be drawn to eating at such a restaurant. The food that's been mentioned is trivial to make at…

I just wonder how poor people can afford to eat fast food. I wish I could afford to order food every day. I cannot. So I have to cook for myself which I have never really done before, but as an adult I had to learn.
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