McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 58 million customers daily.[3] McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, French fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes and desserts. More recently, it has begun to offer salads, wraps and fruit. Many McDonald's restaurants have included a playground for children and advertising geared toward children, and some have been redesigned in a more 'natural' style, with a particular emphasis on comfort: introducing lounge areas and fireplaces, and eliminating hard plastic chairs and tables.
In addition to its signature restaurant chain, McDonald’s Corporation held a minority interest in Pret A Manger (a UK-based sandwich retailer) until 2008, and owned the Chipotle Mexican Grill until 2006 and the restaurant chain Boston Market until 2007.[4] The company has also expanded the McDonald's menu in recent decades to include alternative meal options, such as salads and snack wraps, in order to capitalize on growing consumer interest in health and wellness.
Each McDonald's restaurant is operated by a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. The corporations' revenues come from the rent, royalties and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. McDonald's revenues grew 27% over the three years ending in 2007 to $22.8 billion, and 9% growth in operating income to $3.9 billion.[5]
Contents[hide]
1 History
2 Corporate overview
2.1 Facts and figures
2.2 Types of restaurants
2.3 Playgrounds
2.4 Redesign
2.5 Business model
3 Controversies
3.1 Arguments in defense of McDonald's
4 Environmental record
5 Legal cases
6 Products
7 Advertising
7.1 Children's advertising
8 Global operations
8.1 Global locations
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
11.1 Multimedia
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In 2006, McDonald's introduced its "Forever Young" brand by redesigning all of their restaurants, the first major redesign since the 1970s.[14][15]
The new design will include the traditional McDonald's yellow and red colors, but the red will be muted to terra cotta, the yellow will turn golden for a more "sunny" look, and olive and sage green will be added. To warm up their look, the restaurants will have less plastic and more brick and wood, with modern hanging lights to produce a softer glow. Contemporary art or framed photographs will hang on the walls.
The exterior will have golden awnings and a "swish brow" instead of the traditional double-slanted mansard roof.
The new restaurants will feature areas:
The "linger" zone will offer armchairs, sofas, and Wi-Fi connections.
The "grab and go" zone will feature tall counters with bar stools for customers who eat alone; Plasma TVs will offer them news and weather reports.
The "flexible" zone will be targeted toward families and will have booths featuring fabric cushions with colorful patterns and flexible seating.
Different music targeted to each zone.

The McDonald's Corporation's business model is slightly different from that of most other fast-food chains. In addition to ordinary franchise fees and marketing fees, which are calculated as a percentage of sales, McDonald's may also collect rent, which may also be calculated on the basis of sales. As a condition of many franchise agreements, which vary by contract age, country and location, the Corporation may own or lease the properties on which McDonald's franchises are located. In most, if not all cases, the franchisee does not own the location of its restaurants.
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.
In other countries McDonald's restaurants are operated by joint ventures of McDonald's Corporation and other, local entities or governments.
As a matter of policy, McDonald's does not make direct sales of food or materials to franchisees, instead organizing the supply of food and materials to restaurants through approved third party logistics operators.
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. (According to a news piece on Fox News this figure is one in ten). 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 selection of meats McDonald's uses varies with the culture of the host country.

Controversies

In April 2008, McDonald's announced that 11 of its Sheffield restaurants have been using a biomass trial that had cut its waste and carbon footprint by half in the area. In this trial, waste from the restaurants were collected by Veolia Environmental Services and used to produce energy at a power plant. McDonald's plans to expand this project, although the lack of biomass power plants in the U.S. will prevent this plan from becoming a national standard anytime soon.[24] In addition, in Europe, McDonald's has been recycling vegetable grease by converting it to fuel for their diesel trucks.[25]
Furthermore, McDonald's has been using a corn-based bioplastic to produce containers for some of their products. Although industries who use this product claim a carbon savings of 30% to 80%, a Guardian study shows otherwise. The results show that this type of plastic does not break down in landfills as efficiently as other conventional plastics. The extra energy it takes to recycle this plastic results in a higher output of greenhouse gases. Also, the plastics can contaminate waste streams causing other recycled plastics to become unsaleable.[26]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized McDonald's continuous effort to reduce solid waste by designing more efficient packaging and by promoting the use of recycled-content materials.[27] McDonald's report that they are committed towards environmental leadership by effectively managing electric energy, by conserving natural resources through recycling and reusing materials, and by addressing water management issues within the restaurant.[28]
When McDonald’s received criticism for its environmental policies in the 1970s, it began to make substantial progress towards source reductions efforts.[29] For instance, an “average meal” in the 1970s—a Big Mac, fries, and a drink—required 46 grams of packaging; today, it requires only 25 grams, allowing a 46 percent reduction.[30] In addition, McDonald’s eliminated the need for intermediate containers for cola by having a delivery system that pumps syrup directly from the delivery truck into storage containers, saving two million pounds of packaging annually.[31] Overall, weight reductions in packaging and products, as well as the increased usage of bulk packaging ultimately decreased packaging by 24 million pounds annually.[32]

Products
Main article: McDonald's products
See also: McDonald's products (international)
McDonald's predominantly sells hamburgers, various types of chicken sandwiches and products, French fries, soft drinks, breakfast items, and desserts. In most markets, McDonald's offers salads and vegetarian items, wraps and other localized fare. This local deviation from the standard menu is a characteristic for which the chain is particularly known, and one which is employed either to abide by regional food taboos (such as the religious prohibition of beef consumption in India) or to make available foods with which the regional market is more familiar (such as the sale of McRice in Indonesia).

Advertising
Main article: McDonald's advertising
McDonald's has for decades maintained an extensive advertising campaign. In addition to the usual media (television, radio, and newspaper), the company makes significant use of billboards and signage, sponsors sporting events from ranging from Little League to the Olympic Games, and makes coolers of orange drink with their logo available for local events of all kinds. Nonetheless, television has always played a central role in the company's advertising strategy.
To date, McDonald's has used 23 different slogans in United States advertising, as well as a few other slogans for select countries and regions. At times, it has run into trouble with its campaigns.

Children's advertising
Main articles: Ronald McDonald and McDonaldland

Global operations

Countries with McDonald's stores
McDonald's has become emblematic of globalization, sometimes referred as the "McDonaldization" of society. The Economist magazine uses the "Big Mac Index": the comparison of a Big Mac's cost in various world currencies can be used to informally judge these currencies' purchasing power parity.
The EFTA countries are leading the Big Mac Index with the top 3 most expensive Big Mac's. Iceland has the most expensive Big Mac, followed by Norway and Switzerland.
The brand is known informally as "Mickey D's" (in the US and Canada), "Macky D's" (in the UK and Ireland), "Mäkkäri" (in Finland), "McDo" (in France, Quebec, the Philippines and the Kansai region of Japan), "Maccer's" (in Ireland), "Macarrannis" (in Mexico), "Maccas" (in New Zealand and Australia), "McD's" (in New Zealand), "Donken" (in Sweden), "de Mac" (in the Netherlands), Mäkkes (in Germany), "Mac" (in Brazil and the Kanto region of Japan), "Mek" (in Serbia), "Mekáč" (in the Czech republic), "Mak-Dak" (in the Russia) and "MacDon's' (in Canada).
Thomas Friedman once said that no country with a McDonald's had gone to war with another.[35] However, the "Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" is not strictly true. Careful historians point to the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the 2008 South Ossetia War as exceptions.
Some observers have suggested that the company should be given credit for increasing the standard of service in markets that it enters. A group of anthropologists in a study entitled Golden Arches East (Stanford University Press, 1998, edited by James L. Watson) looked at the impact McDonald's had on East Asia, and Hong Kong in particular. When it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same of other restaurants and institutions. In East Asia in particular, McDonald's have become a symbol for the desire to embrace Western cultural norms. McDonald's have recently taken to partnering up with Sinopec, China's second largest oil company, in the People's Republic of China, as it begins to take advantage of China's growing use of personal vehicles by opening numerous drive-thru restaurants.[36] The only countries in Europe not to have McDonald's stores are Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Vatican City.

Global locations
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
People's Republic of China
Hong Kong
Macau
Republic of China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base)
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Fiji
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guyana
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Jordan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Malaysia
Malta
Mauritius
Mexico
Moldova
Morocco
Netherlands
Aruba
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Panama
Peru
Paraguay
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Samoa
Saint Lucia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Singapore