Higher prices negatively impacted intent to return and resulted in fewer visits to those restaurants
July 31, 2022
July 28, 2022
Wouldn't it be Better to Feed McPlant to the Cattle?
Looks like the end of McDonald's USA McPlandt test
Maybe the American people are just too smart to fall for the foolishness that says raising animals is bad for the environment.
July 27, 2022
July 25, 2022
Housekeeping Two - Belated Article
A guest recently sent in an article as a suggestion. I set it aside because the same website ran a similar article the previous day and it looked like a duplication. It wasn't.
This article is behind Restaurant Business' "Premium paywall" but access is worth $100 per year.
You'll enjoy the headline and the closing paragraph, "But, as noted before, McDonald's has been on a roll. Franchisees have made money and their stores are worth historically high valuations ... After all, the company's efforts have worked"...
Why McDonald's Franchisee Dispute is a Big Deal, Even if Investors are Ignoring it
July 24, 2022
Housekeeping
Tampa - A scan of this blog over the past weeks would indicate there are folks posting here that know something about the terms and conditions of the pending Tampa/ Casper sale. That's not true; no one posting here knows anything.
And they shouldn't. As big as such a deal is, it's still private and should remain so in perpetuity.
Some information on the transaction may be disclosed in future McDonald's corporate reports but it will be less than satisfying.
The number of U.S. A. Owner/Operators - When McDonald's Corp. states the number of USA Owner/Operators the numbers always seem to vary. As anonymous has already pointed out, it depends on how one counts the extended generations. I found this challenging when publishing hard copy, and mailed newsletters. Why mail four identical newsletters to one office address?
This gives corporate the ability to minimize the importance of the MOA and other Owner/Operator groups by overstating the USA total yet use the smaller number when it's to their advantage. The only thing McDonald's Owners/Operators can do is to pick a realistic number and stick with it.
This kind of inside baseball detail is very difficult to explain to a reporter.
July 23, 2022
July 20, 2022
July 15, 2022
Ready for Some Politics?
If you pay little attention to U.S. politics we'll need to remind you that Newt Gingrich was the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999 and served in Congress for 20 years. He's a historian, a prolific author, and a college professor.
This 20 minutes podcast shows that he understands what's going on with corporate America. Somehow he has become very familiar with the upper management team at McDonald's.
Newt:
"You now have top level (corporate people) who went to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and who have hired staff from the same elite schools, and collectively they believe in a world view that it's their duty to impose on the rest of us as if we were ignorant and hopeless and only are capable of being changed by doing the things they tell us to do."
Podcast: Are we already socialists?
Arrow in top left corner - one commercial
July 11, 2022
July 10, 2022
ESG is for Losers
On June 4 I wrote this, "The rest of this year will be very politically charged and when the mid-term elections are over the corporate types will be embarrassed to mutter the words "Environmental, Social, and Governance".
It's starting already and none other than the Wall Street Journal says so:
July 9, 2022
July 7, 2022
July 3, 2022
An Owner’s Lament - Submitted Anonymously
A view from the front row seats of recent developments is surreal to those of us who grew up in the McDonald’s System.
An Undeniable Narrative: "Death of an industry-leading culture and legacy" via four years of policies, from “Partners and Collaboration, to Command and Control”, or, ”Your opinion doesn't have a home any longer!".
Who will lead? Who will tell the "rest of the story" and add up the list to reverse engineer the success of a 3-Legged Stool created by the pioneering Founders?
The final chapter of McDonald’s has been written as another sham corporate power grab. The most recent degrading management action:
The "Death of an Industry" leading corporate partnership culture, by removing major incentives of long-term equity, assurances of a long-term relationship and if you deliver, you grow without automatic built-in legal impediments:
The "Triggering Event" was a corporate announcement without Owner input, ending the historical legacy that set McDonald's apart.
McD's policy memo after four 4 years of build-up for the ultimate nuclear announcement.
The McPresUSA's memo was received without previous Owner input and without regard to recent events adding the Labor Recruitment & Retention Terminator known as PACE. (In spite of the worst labor environment in history). That is the PACE grading at the worst time, they are ending the original franchising agreement and philosophy of 60+ Years. Every Owner's Equity goes down without the understanding of a 2nd or 3rd 20-year lease, a given before.
Equity is the entire reason Owners believe in their retirement "payoff" after 20-40+ years of building the system so that they can sell one day after building their marketplace and respective restaurants. There are hidden messages to hurt Owners, yet most Owner Advocacy is without an action plan, or strategy and proliferates the message the current Owner Leaders are now wearing the jerseys of so many failed leaders before them.
The fact they are worn out, outmaneuvered by novice adversaries, intimidated beyond the imagination of adult business leaders, or complicit in various respective back door agreements to protect a senior management team that the McDonald’s Board should have made wholesale changes after the series of:
* Basic Foodservice Industry mistakes,
* Brand embarrassments of major corporations starting with both recent CEOs,
* Non-existent or incomplete material internal investigations (Easterbrook violations, CK multiple errors in judgment, and inability to express the brand values publicly)
* Incalculable damage to the brand through behaviors as above, business mistakes self-inflicted, mistreatment of corporate employees (series of legal actions and losses), Owner/Operators (immeasurable stories and the continuation of franchisee outbound flight setting records due to relationship mismanagement.
* Decisions that will light the last restaurant employee's torch for leaving the restaurants to others with less bureaucracy, ill-timed requirements, and grading (PACE) that has already lost the Owner’s best managers, supervisors, and upcoming stars…now flowing to competitors providing similar wages without the nightmare of a corporation lost in its own bureaucracy.
July 1, 2022
Wall Street Journal on Demise of McDonald's $1.00 Drink
"McDonald’s owners from restaurants ranging from Chicago to Tennessee have boosted the prices for drinks by several dimes or are set to shortly. Out of McDonald’s 56 U.S. markets, 16 restaurant coops voted to advertise the company’s value menu rather than dollar drinks, allowing them to move away from them, according to people familiar with the discussions." - WSJ