Since this month is all about fast food, I picked up the perfect book for reading and discussing this month: Eric Schlooser's "Fast Food Nation". Today I want to talk about his introduction and the first two chapters of the book.
Introduction
In Schlooser's introduction, he helps us to realize the importance of looking into our fast food chains in order to realize how much fast food has influenced and changed our nation. In the last three decades, fast food has taken over our society. It has spread from small carts selling hotdogs and hamburgers on sidewalks to now, "spread to every corner of the nation, selling a broad range of food wherever paying customers may be found." (Schlooser 3) According to Schlooser, "In 1970, Americans spend about $6 billion on fast food; in 2001, they spend more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined." (3) I think it is imperative that we take a look at our spending and eating habits, and to see where our values lie today. Schlooser wants us to do just this, to discover through his book how fast food has change us and our values. He tells us that "a nation's diet can be more revealing than its art or literature. On any given day in the United States about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food restaurant. During a relatively brief period of time, the fast food industry has helped to transform not only the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, workforce, and popular culture." (Schlooser 3)
McDonald's, one of today's largest fast food companies, has employed at some point in time one out of every eight workers in the United States. Many of these women and teenagers. McDonald's has also spend more money on marketing than any other company, including Coca-Cola. According to a survey of American school children, "96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus." (Schlooser 4) Today, the golden arches of McDonald's are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross (Schlooser 5).
Fast food has also changed our way of doing business. The basic thinking behind fast food company expansion has become the way of thinking for all of today's retail economy, "wiping out small businesses, obliterating regional differences, and spreading identical stores throughout the country like a self-replicating code." (Schlooser 5) Stores everywhere are now being franchised and build to be exactly the same. This uniformity of store design and products has been one of the most successful ventures of the fast food companies. "Customers are drawn to familiar brands by an instinct to avoid the unknown." (Schlooser 5). Interestingly enough, however, one of the biggest ironies of the fast food industry is that "a business so dedicated to conformity was founded by iconoclasts and self-made men, by entrepreneurs willing to defy conventional opinion." (Schlooser 6)
Thanks to the promotional efforts of many fast food companies, the hamburger and French fries became the American meal by the 1950's (Schlooser 6). Now, according to Schlooser, "the typical American now consumes approximately three hamburgers and four orders of French fries every week." (6)
When President Richard Nixon and his administration were in office, the congress and White House began working closely with the fast food industry "to oppose new worker safety, food safety, and minimum wage laws." (Schlooser 8) Schlooser claims that "American fast food industry in its present form is the logical outcome of certain political and economic choices." (8)
Today, fast food is "heavily marketed to children and prepared by people who are barely older than children. This is an industry that both feeds and feeds off the young." (Schlooser 9) While the food has been carefully designed to taste good, to be cheap, and to be convenient to get, the real price of the food cannot be found on the menu (Schlooser 9).
The Founding Fathers
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| Carl N. Karcher |
In the early years of the fast food industry, large bright buildings did not yet exist. Rather, the "fast food" of today was sold off of hotdog and hamburger stands on the sidewalks of major cities. The cities in the state of California served as the pioneers in the fast food industry. One man who lived in California, Carl N. Karcher was one of the first founding fathers of the fast food industry (Schlooser 15). During the second world war, Carl bought himself two hotdog carts and made a living selling his food products to the citizens of the city. Between the 1920s and 1940s, the population of California nearly tripled, owing to the fact that the automobile had finally become affordable for a majority of the public (Schlooser 15). The automobile companies, and especially GM, continued to grow in the late 1920s, mostly because they began to buy out the trolley systems, replace them with buses that they manufactured, and lowered the price of cars. Since people were driving more, they became lazier and did want to get out of their cars even to eat. This allowed for the drive in restaurant birth. These new drive ins competed for attention and would use visual lures to get people to stop by; including bright colors for their buildings and dressing the waitresses in all kinds of costumes (Schlooser 17). With the lure of girls, cars, and late night food, drive ins became a thing of the popular culture among the youth.
In 1945, Carl Karcher bought a restaurant building and opened the doors to Carl's Drive-In Barbeque. Business continued to soar for Carl and his family (Schlooser 18). Eventually, when Carl thought that his company's future was secure, he heard about another hamburger company that was selling their high quality burgers for 20 cents cheaper than he was! So Carl decided to go to the other city to take a look at the competition. There, he saw for the first time people standing in long lines, waiting to buy bags of "McDonald's Famous Hamburgers" (Schlooser 19). In 1937, the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, opened a drive in restaurant in Pasadena. After their business began to soar, they moved their company and opened up the McDonald Brothers Burger Bar Drive-In (Schlooser 19). While the business continued to go well, the brothers became tired with the mainly young male clientele and the constant hiring of new carhops. After considering selling the company, the brothers decided to close their restaurant down, install newer and bigger cookware, and open three months later with a radically new system for preparing food (Schlooser 19). This new system, according to Schlooser, was "designed to increase the speed, lower the prices, and raise the volume of sales. The brothers got rid of everything that had to be eaten with a knife, spoon, or fork. They got rid of their dishes and glassware, replacing them with paper cups, paper bags, and paper plates. They divided the food preparation into separate tasks performed by different workers." (18-19) For the first time in history, the assembly line principles of the automobile industry had been taken into the food industry as well. With the decrease in price and increase in service, families could finally afford to feed their kids in a restaurant.
Entrepreneurs from all over the country flocked to California to get a glimpse of the fast food companies starting up, and attempted to bring the ideas back to their hometowns and start up a restaurant business of their own. Schlooser tells us that "America's fast food chains were not launched by large corporations relying upon focus groups and market research. They were started by door-to-door salesmen, short-order cooks, orphans, and dropouts, by eternal optimists looking for a piece of the next big thing." (22) Many of the founders of these fast food chains share a similar story. William Rosenberg dropped out of school when he was fourteen, worked as a door-to-door salesman, and then opened up his Dunkin Donuts franchise company in 1948 (Schlooser 22). Glen W. Bell Jr. was a WW2 veteran who used the assembly line system to make Mexican food, opening his chain Taco Bell (Schlooser 22). Keith G. Cramer opened his first Burger King in 1953 (Schlooser 22). Dave Thomas started working in the restaurant business at the age of 12, dropped out of school at the age of 15, served as a busboy and cook, and opened his own company in Columbus, Ohio: Wendy's (Schlooser 23). Thomas S. Monaghan spent most of his childhood in a Catholic orphanage, barely graduated high school, joined the marines, and later opened the first Domino's in Ypsilanti, Michigan (Schlooser 23). And Harland Sanders left school at the age of 12, worked various jobs (such as a lawyer, doctor, insurance seller, gas station operator, etc), and opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952 when he was well into his 60s (Schlooser 23). Many of these businesses continued to grow and expand. In fact, McDonalds alone grew from 250 stores to about 3,000 stores between 1960 and 1973 (Schlooser 24)!
In 1988, Carl and his company began undergoing lawsuits that forced them to pay more than half a million dollars in fines , and in the 1990s, many of his investments had been proven unwise(Schlooser 25). When subdivisions in the local area went bankrupt, Carl found himself saddled with many of their debts, owing more than $70 million to various banks (Schlooser 25). On March 1, 1993, Carl Karcher's Enterprises board voted five to two to fire Carl N. Karcher. Carl felt extremely betrayed. This was his company, through which he had made all of his board members very, very rich. Schlooser tells us that "at the age of seventy-six, more than five decades after starting the business, Carl N. Karcher was prevented from entering his own office, and new locks were put on the doors." (26) After eight weeks of being locked out, Carl devised a takeover of the company. A partnership was formed between Carl N. Karcher and William P. Foley II. Together, they turned the company around, raised their stocks, and purchased Hardee's for $327 million in 1997 (Schlooser 27). They became the fourth biggest hamburger chain in the United States, "joining McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's at the top (Schlooser 27). When Schlooser went to interview Karcher about the fast food industry growth and asked him how he felt driving through Anaheim, with its fast food restaurants, subdivisions, and strip malls that have taken the place of the ranches and citrus groves. Carl responded that he "couldn't be happier." Carl told Schlooser that he "believe[s] in progress." (28) When Carl had been growing up, he had been living on a farm with no running water or electricity. According to Schlooser, he had escaped a hard rural life. The view out of his window, then, was not disturbing to Carl, but was rather a mark of success (Schlooser 28).
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| Carl N. Karcher Recent Photo |
Your Trusted Friends
During the expansion of McDonald's, Ray Kroc worked closely with the brothers and helped to found the McDonald's Corporation, and to form a philosophy of Quality, Service, Cleanliness, and Value. The corporation has increases so much that they now have their own training facility called the Hamburger University and a Museum. From childhood, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney were friends who both played a central role in the creation of new American industries (Schlooser 33). Kroc and Disney were both similar in their marketing strategies, marketing to children which lead to their major success.
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| Ray Kroc |
While working with the McDonald brother, Kroc convinced them to sell him the rights to franchise McDonald's nationwide (Schlooser 35). Kroc was interested in combining his restaurant with Disney's theme parks, however did not go through with the plan when Disney asked him to raise his prices on French fries (Schlooser 35). Kroc believed that his loyalty to his customers was more important. In 1941, amidst the animator's strike, Disney made a speech where he told his employees that "it is the law of the universe that the strong shall survive and the weak must fall by the way, and I don't give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that." (Schlooser 37) In this way, Disney followed the ideology of the fast food industry, knocking out any small competition and expanding further. The government has also been responsible for the expansion of the fast food industry. In 1972, Kroc gave $250,000 to President Nixon's reelection campaign (Schlooser 37). In that year, the fast food industries were lobbying for Congress and the White House to pass a new legislation "known as the "McDonald's Bill" - that would allow employers to pay sixteen and seventeen year old kids wages 20% lower than the minimum wage." (Schlooser 37) Nixon's administration supported this bill and also allowed McDonald's to raise the price of its Quarter Pounders.
According to Schlooser, "among other cultural innovations, Walt Disney pioneered the marketing strategy now known as synergy." (40) Using this strategy, along with marketing to children, Kroc adopted this method of marketing by adding the Ronald McDonald fictional character, incorporating small Playlands to appeal to children, and putting toys in the Happy Meals.
Today, according to Schlooser, "the typical American child now spends about twenty one ours a week watching television - roughly one and a half months of TV every year. That does not include the time children spend in front of a screen watching videos, playing video games, or using the computer." (46) Kroc took advantage of all these hours that children were now watching TV to launch a huge marketing campaign: commercials on children's TV programs.
In addition to the TV marketing, the addition of the playlands to McDonald restaurants brought customers into the stores. The playlands would bring the children, who bring in parents, who bring in money. According to Schlooser, "Every month, about 90% of American children between the ages of three and nine visit a McDonald's!" (47) Another key to attracting children that McDonald's has employed in their company, is the addition of toys to the Happy Meals. McDonald's corporation has kept close attention to the latest show and toy crazes. In 1977, McDonald's launched their best yet toy promotion: The Teenie Beanie Baby (Schlooser 47). Prior to the toys introduction, McDonald's sold about 10 million Happy Meals in a typical week. Schlooser tells us that "over the course of ten days in April of 1977, by including a Teenie beanie Baby with each purchase, McDonald's sold about 100 million Happy Meals!" (47) Through all of these toys, the fast food industry has exponentially strengthened the ties between themselves and Hollywood. Today, Disney and McDonald's have finally joined forces, so you can now "buy a Happy Meal at the Happiest Place on Earth." (Schlooser 49)
A final marketing ploy taken on by the fast food industry is promotion in schools, especially for soda. Soda has a very high profit margin and is thus is a way for schools and restaurants to gain tons financially. Also, with the high increases in textbooks for schools, many companies are offering teaching materials for smaller costs that offer biased information (Schlooser 55). The intention with this is to create more long-term awareness and lasting attitude of fast food companies being our trusted friends and our classic American meal (Schlooser 56).
Join me next week in the continuation of Eric Schlooser's book (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) where we will uncover and learn more about the rise of the fast food nation.
Exercise: Because of the major snow day we had here in Michigan today, my usual Wednesday Yoga class was cancelled! Such a bummer. Instead, I extended my run for today and did a 45 minute workout on a treadmill.
5 Minutes - Warm up by walking at a medium pace on 0.0 incline. (I set my speed to 4.0)
5 Minutes - Up your speed to a power walking speed with incline still set to 0.0. (I set my speed to 4.5)
5 Minutes - Increase your speed to a fast run with incline at 0.0. (I upped my speed to 6.0 - 10 minute mile pace)
5 Minutes - Slow your speed down to a fast walk and set your incline to 6.0. (I set my speed to 4.5)
5 Minutes - Go back to 0.0 incline and that fast walking speed.
5 Minutes - Slow down your speed (4.5) and set your incline to 7.0.
5 Minutes - For the last time, set your incline to 0.0 and increase your speed to a run.
5 Minutes - For the last time, slow down to a fast walking speed and set your incline to 8.0
5 Minutes - Complete a cool down.
TOTAL TIME: 45 Minutes
I was able to go 3.5 miles in this time limit and burned over 400 calories!
Eat: For dinner tonight, my family ate one of my favorite winter meals: Homemade Spaghetti! I thought I'd share my family's recipe with you today.
In a large cooking pot, cook up 1 lb ground beef. Then sauté 1 onion, 3 stalks of celery, and 2 cloves minced garlic in with the meat. When the meat and veggies are all cooked, add in 1 extra large can of stewed tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 cup Ketchup, 1 can of mushrooms, 1 tsp. oregano, salt, and pepper. Once this is all heated through, serve over spaghetti noodles and enjoy!
Relax: With all of the stresses that a major snow in brings, snow days also offer us a chance to stay indoors and relax! Today I want to encourage you to stay inside your house (driving is going to be a mess out there) and use some of your time to watch a movie, read, cook, or knock some to do items off your list! I hope you are able to stay warm and safe today!
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