Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/30/mcdonalds-sales-fall-for-the-first-time-in-years.html
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Uh… this is how business works: raw material prices go up, and that increase gets passed on to the customer.
That is price gouging, which is deplorable, unnecessary, and as we see here, suicidal.
Very telling in his corporate gobbledygook he says:
Translated: “our main customers are teh poors, who can no longer afford to buy our fūdz,” [because price gouging].
But, like the proverbial lemming, they will rush off the cliff to appease the great god Make-Line-Go-Up.
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I was stuck with an awful mcdonald’s-worshiping girl around my age during a road trip from Detroit to Harrodsburg, Kentucky in the late 70s. When the woman who was driving finally gave in to her whining, and we stopped at a mcdonald’s on the way home, the girl was ecstatic. She’d freaked out hardcore on learning I hadn’t been to one since early childhood, and kept insisting we’d all absolutely love it, that it was The Best Ever.
She asked me, after she’d been gleefully devouring her stuff, “Isn’t this great?!”
When I’d finished subtly dealing with my 2nd bit of gristle provided by the same burger, I quietly replied, “Not really,” and she was horrified. “Well, don’t you love the fries?! They’re so good!” She gave up all hope when I said, “They’re okay, but they’re much too salty.”
She looked at me like I was a disease, then became furious, and wouldn’t speak to nor look at me for the rest of the ride. She’d disliked me from the moment we met, because I read lots of books and didn’t dress the way everyone else did.
She was unpleasant in so many other ways, and I wished I’d made her that angry far sooner, so I wouldn’t have had to endure so much of her “company” nor “conversation.”
I have not eaten any of mcdonald’s so-called food since then.
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After getting the trots a few times after eating McD’s meals a few decades ago, I swore off the chain for good. My digestive system can handle a lot, but apparently that’s where it drew the line and said “no more!”
The big burger chains are all pretty bad, through. A few months ago, on a trip where I had no other options to satisfy my late-night post-flight hunger, I tried a Wendy’s (the main dining room was closed, but they allowed me to order from the drive-through window as a pedestrian). “How bad could it be?”, I told myself. After decades of eating slightly higher-end but increasingly less comparatively expensive burgers (e.g. Five Guys), it was truly awful.
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It might go the other way around as well. If you only ate fast food, your gut wouldn’t understand homemade stuff. It would be too rich, full of flavor.
Fast food is designed to be a bit bland, so a person grazes on it, and doesn’t feel full.
Homemade food tends to have lots of taste, and full a person up. But with homemade food such as a hamburger you’re only eating one a week at most, whereas McDonald’s is designed to be eaten daily.
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I sure don’t know where all the damn gristle and salt comes in…
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For the crazy price of a burger and fries, I can get a nice bowl at a local Indian place. Far more tasty and healthier.
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Salt, sugar and fat … the 3 magical ingredients of all great processed foods.
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It’s how you imitate flavor when you don’t actually have any…
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That’s where our family is at the moment. Last time we stopped at fast food, even my pickiest kid remarked that at the price we could have gotten a better meal cheaper at the local kebab place.
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As a kid I loved the rare treat of a Happy Meal!
My dad called it “kangaroo meat”, Well, whatever it was, I liked it!
So - uh - can Mc Donalds be happy with flat growth? Like, if they just maintain a level every year that may go up or down a percentage or two and still make billions?
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There was a rumor back in the 70s that Jack in the Box burgers were 'roo meat. Sales plunged. It’s another example of a lie’s causing almost as much trouble as it would have had it been true.
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It’s like you don’t know Wall Street.
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I never went back to a Jack in the Box after witnessing an employee dropping a patty on the floor and then picking it up and putting it back on the grill. Even as a teenager I knew this was an expression of the chain’s quality and franchise control.
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My only quibble is that, while the goal may be to get you to eat there daily, the food is actually designed to taste the same globally. The Big Mac in Toledo tastes the same as the one on Tokyo. Which also means it is likely bland AF in order to have the broadest “appeal.”
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ETA disclaimer:
I had a food handlers’ card back in the mid-80s, when the prevailing wisdom included washing your hands for at least 30 seconds, and the safe temperature for non-frozen food was 45℉. I was horrified enough when the former when down and the latter went up.
What you /shudder witnessed would’ve seen me on the blower to the local Health Department after yelling,
and loudly asking why they put a dropped burger back on the grill.
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No way would I want to deal with gristle every day.
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That’s the bit that gets me. I’ve got a significant appetite and fast food always leaves me hungry. It’s hard to get satiated.
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I’d gladly take a roo meat burger.
They make surprisingly tasty chili 
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