McDonalds. Oh how i laugh.

[JBOY]

other day was at a conference in Glasgow about the launch of the uk "Salads Plus" range.

This is something that's been out in usa and australia for over a year now.

4 different kinds of salad
1 new chicken sandwich (grilled chicken)
removal of the famous "vegetable deluxe"
1 new "Quorn premiere"

1 new fruit yoghurt
restaraunts to start selling fresh apples and oranges.


Get a ****ing grip.

Whilst sales and increased transcount in america indicate that this is actually doubling the influx of new customers for annual growth, and that generally, its a rather good idea for reputation and making more money.

they clearly havent thought, of how the **** its actually going to work over here in pokey little mcds stores.

4 years ago, there were cheese, ham, macs, quarters, veggies, sarnies, nuggets, filets. and an alternate month promotion. 7-8 products.

Currently, there are cheese, ham, macs, quarters, veggies, sarnies, nuggets, filets, premiere's, selects, Big tasty's and doubles. 11 products.

Not including new additions to desert's, mcmini's, McFlurry's etc etc etc.

now, an increased menu of 18 products will follow, until mid may when veggie's are removed, then late may when selects are removed.

9 million quid is being spent on the advertising for the new salads plus range.

each store will be made to purchase 900 quids worth of equiptment, this is the minimum required to prepare and store the enw products.

technically, 40% of mcds stores in the uk, will not have the capacity to stock all of the required items in already overcrowded chillers and freezers.

No pay rises are being given out to compensate for the additional stress of these new products.

(this is mentioned, because historically, McD's as a compeny have given national minimum pay rise increases related to stressful working, and specific area's pay more to crew as a minimum for doing a higher stress of job. eg, city worker gets more than quite in store)

The basis of this non action in the pay department is a trial "stress test" at the oxford street mcds in london. one saturday morning. 3000 vouchers were handed to pedestrians in the oxford street area giving any free meal of their choice from the new salad range. The voucher was only valid from 12pm till 2pm( busiest time for a mcds on a saturday, or any point in the week [ excluding footie stadium located stores]). 2500 vouchers were used. 98% of transcount was for the new salad plus range. the company deemed that since so many customers purchased the nwe product, this removed the stressful other area's of the store. thus no additional stress was encountered. add in the fact, that transcount only increased by 10% from normal, and that the store had been pre warned of the "test" by 3 months, and were incredibly overstaffed with trained individuals. and this test is utter utter crap.

if you are a poor student, or considering taking up a part time job at a mcds near you for a bit of cash on the side.
then don't.

really.

get a piss easy job stacking shelfs or something where you get to donder about and have a chat.

[JBOY]

ps.

i have no idea why i wrote this other than to have a little rant.

post as you wish. insult, flame, troll etc.

i know you will anyway.

[Kurashima]

JBOY , whats your opinion on the Super Size meals being phased out. Is this a direct reaction to "SuperSize Me" , or is it something thats always been in the pipeline?

[insane_in_da_membrane]

I'd rather sell my legs than work in McDonalds.

[Belgarath The Sorcerer]

I work in a petrol station, part time for cash on the side because i'm a poor student.

anyone considering the same: don't.

that is all.

[JBOY]

Originally Posted by Kurashima

JBOY , whats your opinion on the Super Size meals being phased out. Is this a direct reaction to "SuperSize Me" , or is it something thats always been in the pipeline?

They were phased out for a couple of reason's.

Primarily, franchise stores were given the option to remove them nearly a year ago. our franchise did. the profit on a supersized meal was marginal over that of a large meal. the cost and expense of replacing supersized meals, and the costs of wasting/binning a supersized meal meant that really, there was as much profit to them as a medium meal.

for some strange reason, the most popular drink, nationally, with a supersized meal was a diet coke, (chuckle) , the most expensive to produce in store soft drink
[ well, supersized coke = 7pence supersized diet coke = 11p]



Supersized meal's were intenitionally released to increase the average spending of each customer. eg, money is made on selling a meal, fmac+fries+ drink = more profit than mac+ drink. high cost meal = more money than low cost meal, but as explained above, the prices of giving out that meal 'food cost' were only marginally higher than a medium meal.
The fact that not nearly as many people bought supersized meals as expected also helped kill it.

Finally, with all the food watchdog's and negative press, people going out of their way to sully "McDonalds good name". Eg highly publicised case of "McDs made my kids fat" being launched, but little publicity to the fact that the case was brutally thrown out as being ridiculous and the consortium of parents were made instead of being counter sued to make large contributions to charity. a big fat bastard meal just didnt seem like a good idea.
heh

hence the salads and stuff. Incidentally originally released by mcds americe before bk salads and kfc salads. only being released over here thanks to the global "I'm lovin' it" campaign.

[IncubusGod]

One of my best m8's is a store manager in McDonalds. He's part time and putting himself through college. He does nothing but bitch about McDonalds.
Just seeing the stress he is under in there day in day out I fear for his health. Plus he detests( as do I ) their corporate philosophy and ways.
Plus apparently he had to put up with Mr.Timberface singing "Im lovin it" every 10 mins. Oh and he has to wear a shirt saying "Im lovin it" on the front and "Are you?" on the back.

That to me is clearly humiliating heh. Though he's a total clean freak now since the McDonalds courses on hygine in food he's done so if we ever eat where he works we know its clean.
Though we know how damn unhealthy it is too as he's pointed out to us.

So concequently I dont eat McDonalds anymore. Mainly because I hate their ad campaign,their food,their overall attitude.

Pah,this thread must have a "Post here and Rant about nothing in particular" virus.

[Embroglio]

salad in maccy's, how healthy!

[JBOY]

heh.

crew members = mainly spotty teenaged kids that mcds is famed for.
training squad up to floor managers = good at the job
shift runner upwards = supreme stress at having to deal with all the daily business stuff an trying to make annoying spotty kiddies do some ****ing work.

store manager for the company at the moment = mega mega stress. one of my mates was a company store manager, whilst away on holiday one of his floor managers over held some food. mcds keeps food in the big heated bin for ten minutes before binning it (theoretically). some big high payed a visit, found sumat tha had been there for 30 minutes. sacked the fm, and when me mate came back from holidays was demoted.
store manager being responsible for the store whether he's there or not.

annoyingly, he now works as a human resource manager for SKY, on roughly double what he got at mcds. and all he does is do interviews for sales staff.

git

[midge5]

Originally Posted by JBOY

and an alternate month promotion..

The McRib meal in them montly promotions was the nicest thing I have ever had from McDonalds.

Hot fudge ice creams were nice as well but they seem to have dumped them for McFlurrys

[Tomkat]

They're introducing the healthy option because, for the first time in 10-15 years, the sales figures for McDonalds are going down. If it continues, they may find themselves having to make cutbacks.

The main identifiable reason for this is that people are becoming more aware of healthy eating. So they're trying this to show people they can eat healthily there, too.

I can't see it working really. If I want to eat healthily in a fastfood place, I'll go to subways.

[Kurashima]

Originally Posted by midge5

The McRib meal in them montly promotions was the nicest thing I have ever had from McDonalds.

Hot fudge ice creams were nice as well but they seem to have dumped them for McFlurrys

The McFlurry must be exceptionally cheap per unit to produce, because theyre goddamn awful compared to the Hot Fudge Sundaes. (although i am aware its the same "Ice" cream .... having worked in there when i was 17, i know what that stuff is)

[JBOY]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

They're introducing the healthy option because, for the first time in 10-15 years, the sales figures for McDonalds are going down. If it continues, they may find themselves having to make cutbacks.

The main identifiable reason for this is that people are becoming more aware of healthy eating. So they're trying this to show people they can eat healthily there, too.

I can't see it working really. If I want to eat healthily in a fastfood place, I'll go to subways.

went down

2002-2003

and now they're going back up again.

rapidly.

as a franchise, this year so far is on course to make more money by the end of this quarter than 2001.

[meglamaniac]

I have a friend who works at McDs.

I shall tell her directly (whilst laughing).

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by JBOY

went down

2002-2003

and now they're going back up again.

rapidly.

as a franchise, this year so far is on course to make more money by the end of this quarter than 2001.

I'm obviously behind with the times...
I read about them going down in my first year of uni, you see. Assumed it would have extrapolated, as more and more people realise how unhealthy McDs is...

[meglamaniac]

Not going to work.
The problem with having a friend who works there is access to her employee card. Even though I know how shit it is, when I can get pretty much anything I want for £1.99 it's food (in the losest possible sense of the word) that's cheap. Even moreso if I go in when she's working cos then she just hands me free stuff over the counter.

[Embroglio]

seriously though, who [that isn't a ****ing idiot] would ever go to maccy's for healthy food?

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Embroglio

seriously though, who [that isn't a ****ing idiot] would ever go to maccy's for healthy food?

Someone who's going with friends? Or doesnt have time to sit around for ages and wants something more filling than a cold sandwich? Or just wants decent tasting healthy (ish) food?

[Embroglio]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

decent tasting

[Evergreen]

Originally Posted by Embroglio

You not dead yet?

[JBOY]

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

Not going to work.
The problem with having a friend who works there is access to her employee card. Even though I know how shit it is, when I can get pretty much anything I want for £1.99 it's food (in the losest possible sense of the word) that's cheap. Even moreso if I go in when she's working cos then she just hands me free stuff over the counter.

I'll sell you a new employee card when they come out for the price of a first class stamp.

[JonnyBGood]

McDonalds is only good for the eurosaver menu. 8 chicken nuggets and a bag of chips for 4 euro is decent.

And there are dozens (well maybe a dozen) of alternatives to McDs.

[Scoot951]

McDonald's sucks anyways, I always get my grease-dripping burgers at Burger King or Wendy's.


I don't understand people who stay in retail/etc. permenantly. At the Blockbuster where I work there are 2 groups: the college students, and the 30-40-something managers. As you might expect. Now, it's not as if the managers are idiots - both of the non-student ones have college degrees in something much better, but for some reason they've chosen to live on, and support their families with, a retail job. Why? Retail sucks. They don't like it, we don't like it. The corporation are assholes, the customers are assholes. How they can go 20 years without shooting themselves I don't know.

[madi]

i had a bacon and egg mcmuffin for breakfast
now i have a tummy ache
i shall not do it again

[ChubbyChecker]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

McDonalds is only good for the eurosaver menu. 8 chicken nuggets and a bag of chips for 4 euro is decent.

And there are dozens (well maybe a dozen) of alternatives to McDs.

heh, you're funny, you use euros!

[meglamaniac]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Someone who's going with friends? Or doesnt have time to sit around for ages and wants something more filling than a cold sandwich? Or just wants decent tasting healthy (ish) food?

The friends thing yes.
Wait time? Pfft. So many places do better food in as little time. For this town, off the top of my head I can think of:
Sainsbury's (more specificly, the salad counter - mmm, REAL pasta salad...)
Subway
One of the Student Union shops on campus (has a self service equivilant of the sainsbury's salad counter)

FFS, even the main bar on campus outside of the union building has a shop that does the equivilant of Subway but with those french baguette thingies, and they stuff plenty enough filling in those so you won't be feeling hungry still.

If you want to, finding healthy food that's fast is not hard.

[meglamaniac]

Loughborough.
Hardly the health food capital of the world.
If I can do it here (not that I actually do, but that's besides the point heh) I'm sure you lot living in "the big cities" can manage...

[ChubbyChecker]

What I remember of Loughborough is everybody walking around in track suits, either on their way to doing some sport or on their way back from doing sport.
So I wouldn't be surprised if it is the health food capital of the world.

[meglamaniac]

Ha. Yes it's true we're a very sport driven university, but that doesn't tend to mean much.
The bar I mentioned earlier also has a fast food kitchen. How many rugby players are gonna go get a sandwich when you can get a burger, chips and a pint for £3?

Also, England's number 5 university league badminton player is one of my housemates. What did she eat last night? Pizza.
The night before? KFC.

Sport != healthy eating (necessarily)

[pablissimo]

PLACENTA. I hear that's nice.

[Stew]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

What I remember of Loughborough is everybody walking around in track suits,

PURPLE tracksuits at that!!

[roadrunner_0]

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

Not going to work.
The problem with having a friend who works there is access to her employee card. Even though I know how shit it is, when I can get pretty much anything I want for £1.99 it's food (in the losest possible sense of the word) that's cheap. Even moreso if I go in when she's working cos then she just hands me free stuff over the counter.

we used to get away with the free food thing, now though there are more CCTV cameras on the staff that on the customers in our local McD's

[meglamaniac]

Originally Posted by Stew

PURPLE tracksuits at that!!

Yeah, cheers to whichever graphic designer was responsible for our uni's "corporate colours" being red and purple...

[Nodrog]

You have to be pretty gay to wear university clothing.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

What I remember of Loughborough is everybody walking around in track suits, either on their way to doing some sport or on their way back from doing sport.
So I wouldn't be surprised if it is the health food capital of the world.

Loughborough seems to be a deserted, scary place

[Stew]

Its ok, just has v little nightlife - ok to go there occasionally but you'd get bored of it v. quick.
I did my drivin test there

I didnt see this thread turnin into a L'boro thread!!

[Deciduous]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

You have to be pretty gay to wear university clothing.

I'll remember that one for next time I see the guy with

STAFFORDSHIRE
UNIVERSITY
KICKBOXING

on the back of his coat.

[AliasX]

Out of curiosity, what fast food chains (from America) are in europe?

Mc Donalds
Pizza Hut?
Dominos?
Wendys?

(please provide a list if you have the time and dont mind)

[JBOY]

Mcds
burger king
kfc
pizza hut
dominos
subway

[MrL_JaKiri]

Yes, yes, yes, never encountered. I've no idea which companies are american, mind.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by AliasX

Out of curiosity, what fast food chains (from America) are in europe?

Mc Donalds
Pizza Hut?
Dominos?
Wendys?

(please provide a list if you have the time and dont mind)

Not Wendy's (not that I've seen, anyway), but the other three are here.

I don't know which fast-food chains are American, so I can't give you a list.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Not Wendy's (not that I've seen, anyway), but the other three are here.

I don't know which fast-food chains are American, so I can't give you a list.

Hey bro

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Hey bro

I've had to go and find out about fast-food "restaurants" now, just so I haven't completely repeated everything you've said.

Wikipedia says that the following are UK fast-food chains:
Burger King
Domino's Pizza
Harry Ramsdens
KFC
McDonald's
Nandos
Pizza Hut
Subway

That's JBOY's list plus Nandos and Harry Ramsdens, neither of which I've heard of.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Harry Ramsdens are a UK based Fish and Chip Restaurant (Restaurant literally; waiters et al).

There's one near the MetroCenter in Gateshead.

[Stew]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Harry Ramsdens are a UK based Fish and Chip Restaurant (Restaurant literally; waiters et al).

There's one near the MetroCenter in Gateshead.

The original was in Lake/Pak district iirc.
They even sell their own chips now - they sold out

[SYMM]

The original Harry Ramsdens was in Guiseley, near Leeds. (Where Leeds/Bradford Airport is...pretty much)

[lokken]

Nando's is a chicken place.

There's one in Freemen's Common in Leicester

[Perfection]

The most amusing thing about mcdonalds is watching some woman (its always a woman) go up and order a large X meal, and then asked what drink she pauses and thinks and replies "diet coke."

You can eat pretty much whatever you want so long as you do a decent (90 mins of football / week is enough for me) amount of excercise

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Perfection

The most amusing thing about mcdonalds is watching some woman (its always a woman) go up and order a large X meal, and then asked what drink she pauses and thinks and replies "diet coke."

It is possible to think that Diet Coke tastes nicer than normal Coke, you know.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Proteus

It is possible to think that Diet Coke tastes nicer than normal Coke, you know.

AHAHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHA.

Good one.