Please stop calling this a "test". It's a done deal. There are too many direct and indirect connections between McDonald's Corp. and Beyond Meat not to think this is inevitable.
People moving from major suppliers like Tyson to manage the McPlant program? How many other line employees have moved back and forth between McDonald's and Beyond Meat?
Beyond Meat (BYND) shares are doing poorly and they need to fool their shareholders into thinking a national rollout with McDonald's will move millions of pounds of product through their system.
It won't, but by then the original speculators in fake meat will be gone with their profits. All driven by McDonald's Owner/Operators funding an OPNAD campaign. McDonald's advertising dollars used to spike the price of another company's share price. Who-da-thunk it.
If the New Year finds you behind on your reading, please don't miss the anonymous Owner/Operator comment we posted on January 3rd.
And make a comment!
While an enjoyable family movie, A Bug's Life ( Pixar - 1998) contains many life lessons. I've always thought this rant by Hopper (voiced by Kevin Spacey) describes the franchisor / franchisee relationship perfectly.
If you're a McDonald's Owner/Operator you'll need to suppress your gag reflex when you come across the recent Wall Street Journal interview with the McDonald's CEO. Reporters rarely get a one-on-one interview with a big company CEO so the result ends up sounding pretty soft ball.
The interview is behind the WSJ paywall, but Fox Business touched on some high points including a video interview with former McDonald's exec Ed Rensi.
The pull quote in the interview is when McCEO says, "The CEO does set the culture and others are going to pick up on what you choose to focus on".
That may be what his B-school professors told him but that's just not true in a franchise system. With franchisees involved the culture ends up being a mix of how the franchisees perform and behave with some small input from corporate management.
The founders of a franchise system certainly determine the culture in the early years but as time goes by and the founders fade away the franchisees have more and more influence on the system's culture. CEOs come and go, and they have little to do with the culture. Especially if they have no system history and are focused on reinventing the brand.
While changes at Subway will have little impact on McDonald's something more important might be happening at Chick-fil-A.
I say, "might be".
It doesn't get talked about enough, but one reason Chick-fil-A has huge volumes is that they have the "operator" on-premises with only one store. That might be changing.
For years the franchising section of their website was very straightforward, "We are not interested in candidates seeking multiple locations" - or words to that effect.
In other words, one operator - one store - that's it. It was pretty blunt.
Now I find the website has been updated and as far as I can tell that language is gone.
This might be an accidental omission. Or they don't know how to say it more gracefully. But it might mean they are going to supercharge their growth by allowing the franchisees to open multiple locations. They must have many operators with decades of experience who could run a second or third location.
The guy who runs my favorite Chick-fil-A is a A+ operator and has his extended family involved. I could see him running multiple locations and doing a fine job.
They could accelerate their growth without help from whiney shareholders. And if they wanted to preserve capex the line of landlords eager to do build-to-suits would stretch from Los Angeles to Atlanta.
Something to watch - It's a good thing the NOA pushed for a focus on chicken, very prescient.
That's not going to work. With a $400K AUV they need the franchisees in the store making sandwiches. The larger guys will crash and burn.
"Uber Eats ... acts as if they can do whatever they want, just because they are a big corporation, and we are a small business.”
Gosh that sounds familiar.
Uber Eats withheld $11K owed to restaurant over $500 IRS debt
"I am writing to you as a multi decade Licensee of the McDonalds System. The reason I am writing this is to express my utter frustration with the current Senior Leadership Team at McDonalds. At a time when government dictated extreme mandates exist, staffing shortages are rampant, supply issues dominate the news, unions are knocking at our door, and in the midst of a global pandemic, McDonalds upper management team has totally ignored our attempts to address the current untenable situations." ...
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