Mal Boeuf
Last year, McDonald's had its strongest comparable store sales in the US since '06 and it plans to invest $2.9 billion in 2012 to open another 1,300 stores including 250 across Europe and France. This data remarkable when once considers 2004 : Jim Cantalupo, the CEO, died of a heart attack 16 months in the job. Seven months later, his successor, Charlie Bell diagnosed with cancer and resigned. Then there was the film Super Size Me which showed the dire effects of eating at, well, McDonald's.
Super Size probably the best thing to happen to McDonald's, which went into overdrive to upgrade the quality of the dining experience, including the food, while bringing "value-meals" to recession-hit eaters : it introduced a dollar-menu. The combination a winner, too, and the 33,510 restaurants made $27 billion of turnover in 2011, up from $19 billion in 2004 (Burger King, by comparison, was $2.3B in 2011 and $1.8B in 2004). In February, McDonald's had its 106th consecutive moth of positive same-store sales growth in the USA.
Of course McD's success comes at a cost: obesity rates for children and Hispanics, where McDonald's focuses its marketing, have risen disproportionately since '06 according to Corporate Accountability Intl. Photo from the www.
"When your stores are generating that much money, the question is how do you keep growing?"
--Draren Tristano, restaurant consulting firm Technomic
