McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is one of the world's largest chains of fast-food restaurants.

This company began in 1940 with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald, but it was their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 that established the principles of the fast-food restaurant. However, the company today dates its "founding" to the opening of CEO Ray Kroc's first franchised restaurant, the company's ninth, in 1955.

Corporate overview

McDonald restaurants are found in 118 countries and territories around the world. They serve nearly 50 million customers each day. The famous company operates other restaurant brands, such as Aroma Café, Boston Market and Chipotle Mexican Grill, and has a minority stake in Pret a Manger. Until December 2003, it also owned Donatos Pizza. It also has a subsidiary, Redbox, which started in 2003 as 18-foot wide automated convenience stores, but as of 2005 has focused on DVD rental machines.

Most ^{[citation needed]}standalone McDonald's restaurants offer both counter and drive-through service, with indoor and sometimes outdoor seating. Drive-Thru, Auto-Mac, Pay and Drive or McDrive as it is known in many countries, often has separate stations for placing, paying for, and picking up orders, though the latter two steps are frequently combined. In some countries "McDrive" locations near highways offer no counter service or seating. In contrast, locations in high-density city neighborhoods often omit drive-through service. There are also a few locations, located mostly in downtown districts, that offer Walk-Thru service in place of Drive-Thru.

Specially themed restaurants also exist, such as "Rock-and-Roll McDonald's" 1950s themed restaurants. Some McDonald's in suburban areas and certain cities feature large indoor or outdoor playgrounds, called "McDonald's PlayPlace" (if indoors) or "Playland" (outdoors). The first PlayPlace with the familiar crawl-tube design with ball pits and slides was introduced in 1987 in the USA, with many more being constructed soon after. Due to lawsuits over kids playing and getting hurt, however, many of these are no longer in use.

The McDonald's Corporation's business model is slightly different from that of most other fast-food chains. In addition to ordinary franchise fees, supplies, and percentage of sales, McDonald's also collects rent, partially linked to sales. As a condition of the franchise agreement, the Corporation owns the properties on which most McDonald's franchises are located. The UK business model is different, in that fewer than 30% of restaurants are franchised, with the majority under the ownership of the company. McDonald's trains its franchisees and others at Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois.

According to Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (2001), nearly one in eight workers in the U.S. have at some time been employed by McDonald's. The book also states that McDonald's is the largest private operator of playgrounds in the U.S., as well as the single largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples. The meats McDonald's uses vary with the culture of the host country.

History

McDonald's founders' (Dick and Mac McDonald) first venture into the food business was in 1937, when they opened a hot dog stand in Arcadia, California. They opened the first McDonald's restaurant on May 15, 1940, in San Bernardino, California. Hamburgers proved to be their most popular product, so in 1948 the brothers introduced their "Speedee Service System," a streamlined assembly line for hamburgers that allowed them to produce burgers quickly and inexpensively. Their cheap burgers were very successful, and in 1953 they began to franchise McDonald's restaurants. Entrepreneur Ray Kroc visited the first restaurant in 1953, and sensing its potential, he convinced the brothers to put him in charge of franchising. He later purchased the brothers' interest in the company, and oversaw its worldwide expansion.

Criticisms

McDonald's faces varying problems. Some of these are unique to franchising. As one of the world's largest and best recognized franchise systems, it must endeavour to successfully deal with matters of internal cohesion between the interests of its franchisees and that of the franchisor. At the same time, its global reach and broadly standard product line and level of service have led to McDonald's becoming the target of anti-globalization protests, and as the highest-profile fast food company, it is often blamed for obesity and excessive packaging waste. Its moves to protect its reputation and trademarks have at times been seen as heavy-handed.

As the world's largest restaurant chain, McDonald's also finds itself a target for external criticism. Even though its foreign franchise locations are usually locally owned and use locally-produced foods, the company is seen as a symbol of American domination of economic resources. Urban legends about the company and its food are plentiful and it is often the target of unusual lawsuits.

McDonald's has been the target of criticism for allegations of exploitation of entry-level workers, closing down stores once the workers unionize, use of sweatshop labor to produce "happy meal" toys, ecological damage caused by agricultural production and industrial processing of its products, selling unhealthy food, production of packaging waste, exploitative advertising (especially targeted at children, minorities, and low-income people), and contributing to suffering and exploitation of livestock. McDonald's' historic tendency towards promoting high-calorie foods such as French fries has earned it the nickname "the starchy arches".

The soya that is fed to McDonald’s chickens is supplied by agricultural giant Cargill and comes directly from Brazil. Greenpeace alleges that not only is soya destroying the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, but soya farmers are guilty of further crimes including slavery and the invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands. The accusation is that McDonald's, as a client of Cargill's, is complicit in these alleged activities. ^[1]

Allegedly Happy Meal Toys are made in low paying countries such as China^{[citation needed]}. Conditions at the workplaces are rather poor. Workers are forced to sleep in small rooms on bunk-beds without matresses. A recent interviewer of workers found out that some workers work for 17 hours straight and earn less than ten cents an hour.