Shawn Hubbard for Forbes
He begins at a small restaurant a block from Louisiana State University. The summer sun is baking the blacktop as Graves marches through the drive-thru, heading for the menu board he personally erected 29 years ago. “I built this structure,” he says, naming the local lumberyard that sold him the wood. He points out the 20-foot mural he had painted on the side of the building. He showcases the neon “chicken fingers” light he designed at a Baton Rouge sign shop……….Continue reading….
Source: Forbes
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Early fast-food production relied on manual, physical methods of tracking orders, such as order wheels.To make quick service possible and to ensure accuracy and security, many fast-food restaurants have incorporated hospitality point of sale systems. This makes it possible for kitchen crew people to view orders placed at the front counter or drive through in real time. Wireless systems allow orders placed at drive through speakers to be taken by cashiers and cooks.
Drive through and walk through configurations will allow orders to be taken at one register and paid at another. Modern point of sale systems can operate on computer networks using a variety of software programs. Sales records can be generated and remote access to computer reports can be given to corporate offices, managers, troubleshooters, and other authorized personnel.
Food service chains partner with food equipment manufacturers to design highly specialized restaurant equipment, often incorporating heat sensors, timers, and other electronic controls into the design. Collaborative design techniques, such as rapid visualization and computer-aided design of restaurant kitchens are now being used to establish equipment specifications that are consistent with restaurant operating and merchandising requirements.
In the United States, consumers spent about $110 billion on fast food in 2000 (which increased from $6 billion in 1970). The National Restaurant Association forecasts that fast-food restaurants in the US will reach $142 billion in sales in 2006, a 5% increase over 2005. In comparison, the full-service restaurant segment of the food industry is expected to generate $173 billion in sales. Fast food has been losing market share to so-called fast-casual restaurants, which offer more robust and expensive cuisines.
McDonald’s, a fast-food supplier, opened its first franchised restaurant in the US in 1955 (1974 in the UK). It has become a phenomenally successful enterprise in terms of financial growth, brand-name recognition, and worldwide expansion. Ray Kroc, who bought the franchising license from the McDonald brothers, pioneered concepts which emphasized standardization. He introduced uniform products, identical in all respects at each outlet, to increase sales.
Kroc also insisted on cutting food costs as much as possible, eventually using the McDonald’s Corporation’s size to force suppliers to conform to this ethos. Other prominent international fast-food companies include Burger King, the number two hamburger chain in the world, known for promoting its customized menu offerings (Have it Your Way). Another international fast-food chain is KFC, which sells chicken-related products and is the number 1 fast-food company in the People’s Republic of China.
A fast-food chain restaurant is generally owned either by the parent company of the fast-food chain or a franchisee – an independent party given the right to use the company’s trademark and trade name. In the latter case, a contract is made between the franchisee and the parent company, typically requiring the franchisee to pay an initial, fixed fee in addition to a continual percentage of monthly sales.
Upon opening for business, the franchisee oversees the day-to-day operations of the restaurant and acts as a manager of the store. Once the contract expires, the parent company may choose to “renew the contract, sell the franchise to another franchisee, or operate the restaurant itself.”[17] In most fast-food chains, the number of franchised locations exceeds the number of company owned locations.
Fast-food chains rely on consistency and uniformity, in internal operations and brand image, across all of their restaurant locations in order to convey a sense of reliability to their customers. This sense of reliability coupled with a positive customer experience brings customers to place trust in the company. This sense of trust leads to increased customer loyalty which gives the company a source of recurring business.
When a person is presented with a choice of different restaurants to eat at, it is much easier for them to stick with what they know, rather than to take a gamble and dive into the unknown. Due to the importance of consistency, most companies set standards unifying their various restaurant locations with a set of common rules and regulations. Parent companies often rely on field representatives to ensure that the practices of franchised locations are consistent with the company’s standards.
However, the more locations a fast-food chain has, the harder it is for the parent company to guarantee that these standards are being followed. Moreover, it is much more expensive to discharge a franchisee for noncompliance with company standards, than it is to discharge an employee for that same reason. As a consequence, parent companies tend to deal with franchisee violations in a more relaxed manner.
Many companies also adapt to their different local areas to support the needs of the customers. Sometimes it is necessary for a franchisee to modify the way the restaurant/store runs to meet the needs of local customers.[19] As referenced in Bodey’s “Localization and Customer Retention for Franchise Service Systems” article, J. L. Bradach claims that a franchise will either use the tactical or strategic local response. Tactical applies to accounting for hiring of personnel and suppliers as well as financial decisions to adapt to the local customers.
Strategic applies to the specific characteristics of the franchise that will change from the basic format followed by all to fit in the local area. For the most part, someone visiting a McDonald’s in the United States will have the same experience as someone visiting a McDonald’s in Japan. The interior design, the menu, the speed of service, and the taste of the food will all be very similar. However, some differences do exist to tailor to particular cultural differences.
For example, in October 2005 during a midst of plummeting sales in Japan, McDonald’s added a shrimp burger to the Japanese menu. The choice to introduce a shrimp burger was no coincidence, as a 1989 study stated that world consumption of shrimp was “led by Japan.” In March 2010, Taco Bell opened their first restaurant in India. Because non-consumption of beef is a cultural norm in light of India’s Dharmic beliefs, Taco Bell had to tailor its menu to the dietary distinctions of Indian culture by replacing all of the beef with chicken.
By the same token, completely meatless options were introduced to the menu due to the prevalence of vegetarianism throughout the country. The fast-food industry is a popular target for critics, from anti-globalization activists like José Bové to vegetarian activist groups such as PETA as well as the workers themselves. A number of fast-food worker strikes occurred in the United States in the 2010s.
In his best-selling 2001 book Fast Food Nation, investigative journalist Eric Schlosser leveled a broad, socioeconomic critique against the fast-food industry, documenting how fast food rose from small, family-run businesses (like the McDonald brothers’ burger joint) into large, multinational corporate juggernauts whose economies of scale radically transformed agriculture, meat processing, and labor markets in the late twentieth century.
Schlosser argues that while the innovations of the fast-food industry gave Americans more and cheaper dining options, it has come at the price of destroying the environment, economy, and small-town communities of rural America while shielding consumers from the real costs of their convenient meal, both in terms of health and the broader impact of large-scale food production and processing on workers, animals, and land.
The fast-food industry is popular in the United States, the source of most of its innovation, and many major international chains are based there. Seen as symbols of US dominance and perceived cultural imperialism, American fast-food franchises have often been the target of Anti-globalization protests and demonstrations against the US government. In 2005, for example, rioters in Karachi, Pakistan, who were initially angered because of the bombing of a Shiite mosque, destroyed a KFC restaurant.
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