McDonalds

 Image from Kenjonbro on Flickr.

In high school, I worked at a McDonalds for 2 very long years.  Just as mentioned in the video Fast Food Women, the majority of those who work there were female and management gave each and every single employee a specific way to do tasks, including what to say to each and every customer (and on a side note this makes working miserable because there is no change day to day).   But to get back on topic, even within America McDonalds can vary from place to place in order to accommodate local interest.  This change in products is not a specific trait of McDonalds, Coca Cola and other big companies that are found throughout the globe adapt, but McDonalds is an easy example due to the fact that most Americans know what products American McDonalds supply which makes the differences from place to place easily recognizable.  I decided to look into what differences a McDonalds in the UK has compared to the norm of American McDonalds.  Although the Big Mac is a consistent item, other items like a variety of breakfast wraps and an item called a bacon roll.  Instead of apple slices like in America, the UK serves carrot sticks.  One similarity I’d like to point out is that in both the US and the UK breakfast items are typically sold until 10:30 am.  One thing I was interested in was seeing whether or not there were more McDonalds within a given area here in America or in the UK.  Upon using the store locator, I was disappointed to see that there is an equal amount of stores in London as there are in my hometown of Lawrenceville.  I expected to see a larger number in American compared to elsewhere because of how America is known to enjoy convenience.   In Yan’s article “Of Hamburger and Social Space”, Yan discusses the fact that food conveys social aspects of a culture.  On the UK McDonalds website there is a tab that leads users to get information of how their football, or in American terms soccer, team can be sponsored.  The fact that this source is associated with food demonstrates the idea that the context of food reveals culture of any given area.  Football is huge in European countries and therefore should not be a shocker that the sport is endorsed in many ways, including food consumption.  Yan discusses that when a cultures adopts McDonalds, the culture will adapt the food and other aspects of the company in order to make McDonalds fit into their culture instead of just adopting the American version.  The culture changes the food choices in order to fit the area and culture.  Another element that can be altered is the architecture.  Upon doing further research about UK McDonalds, I stumbled on the detail that is used on the building of the McDonalds.  The fact that UK went through the effort to make the building look more like other typical building demonstrates the fact food consumption is a social aspect of culture.  This small change in design of the building allows for it to be more appealing to the population while also giving the appearance of being an original piece of the culture, in the same way that spaghetti is accepted to be an American dish when in fact it is not.