Issues_and_Problems_for_Mcdonald

Issues and problems for McDonald’s to implement their marketing strategy come endless. As local people come with complain for bad taste, bad service, and many more, the company also has another problems from outside their own country. Health and nutrition from their products are now days hotly discussed. The nutritional content of fast food: high in fat, sugar, and calories is linked to weight gain and consequent health problems. While the statistic data says that obesity is a pervasive problem in America, and as people increasingly become overweight, their health suffers 64% of all Americans overweight and 30% are obese. The percentage of children age 6 to 19 that are overweight has doubled in the last two decades. A group of obese teenagers who ate at McDonald’s 3-5 times per week sued McDonald’s for causing their weight problems. They alleged that McDonald’s advertising and promotional representations create a false impression that its food products are part of a healthy lifestyle. McDonald’s said it would have nutritional information available to customers but it wasn’t. And at 2002, it is the first time for McDonald’s posted a quarter loss in its history. In a 2002 lawsuit against McDonald's, a judge commented that Chicken McNuggets are a "McFrankenstein" creation of various elements not used by the home cook. The judge threw out the lawsuit, suggesting that the plaintiffs could try again if they could prove McDonald's food was an added hazard to the average consumer, rather than just a mix of scary sounding vitamins and natural flavor extracts. The judge identified that rather than being merely chicken fried in a pan, McNuggets included elements not utilized by the home cook, including the unusual sounding ingredients like: extracts of rosemary, vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), leavening (baking soda, calcium lactate, etc). The 2004 documentary Super Size Me states, "McDonald's Chicken McNuggets were originally made from old chickens no longer able to lay eggs. These chickens are stripped down to the bone, and then 'ground up' into a chicken mash, then combined with a variety of stabilizers and preservatives, pressed into familiar shapes, breaded and deep fried, freeze dried, and then shipped to a McDonald's near you." Super Size Me also alleged inclusion of chemicals such as tertiary butylhydroquinone (a phenolic antioxidant used as a chemical preservative), polydimethylsiloxane (an anti-foaming agent), and other ingredients not used by a typical home cook. This was recently restated by CNN. Another controversy arose in a Southlake McDonald’s because of a bacon ranch salad. Chrissy Haley, wife of an assistant coach of the Dallas Cowboy, found a rat in her salad after ordering that salad and a Happy Meal for her child. According to newspaper reports, Haley and her nanny found the dead rat under a large lettuce leaf in a shared salad. McDonald’s has yet to respond, apologize, or even ask if the women are okay. McDonald’s has offended other cultures through some of its actions. The chain has stirred up controversy with some United States Hindus, many vegetarians, and some Japanese. “McDonald's, the fast food giant currently embroiled in a row concerning undisclosed beef flavoring in French fries, has made a formal apology to those it has offended” (McDonald’s resolves french fry dispute, 2002). This may seem like a petty dispute, but is not a small issue to Hindus who believe that the cow is sacred. In response to this offense to Hindus, vegetarians, and others, McDonald’s offered an apology, and paid the groups ten million of dollars in settlement. In addition, “fast food giant McDonalds is facing criticism in Japan after a number of its apple pies were found to contain a banned food coloring agent (McDonald’s apple pies found to contain banned food coloring in Japan, 2006). In 15 McDonald locations across Japan there has been an apple pie recall due to the use of an illegal coloring agent known as azorubin. McDonald’s has claimed that the substance is not harmful, using consumers in the European Union and Australia as examples where people consume apple pies containing azorubin, seemingly without ill effect. McDonald’s has, however, recalled the pies and announced that they will no longer purchase their pies from the China-based factory using azorubin. What's it like working for McDonald's' There must be a serious problem. Even though 80% of McDonald's workers are part-time, the annual staff turnover is 60% (in the USA it is 300 %). It's not unusual for their restaurant-workers to quit after just four or five weeks. The reasons are not had to find. No unions are allowed. * Workers in catering do badly in terms of pay and conditions. They are at work in the evenings and at weekends, doing long shifts in hot, smelly, noisy environments. Wages are low and chances of promotion minimal. To improve this through Trade Union negotiation is very difficult: there is no union specifically for these workers, and the ones they could join show little interest in the problems of part-timers (mostly women). A recent survey of workers in burger-restaurants found that 80% said they needed union help over pay and conditions. Another difficulty is that the 'kitchen trade' has a high proportion of workers from ethnic minority groups who, with little chance of getting work elsewhere, are wary of being sacked - as many have been - for attempting union organization. McDonald's have a policy of preventing unionization by getting rid of pro-union workers. So far this has succeeded everywhere in the world except Sweden, and in Dublin after a long struggle. Trained to sweat * It's obvious that all large chain-stores and junk-food giants depend for their fat profits on the labor of young people. McDonald's is no exception: three-quarters of its workers are under 21. The production-line system deskills the work itself: nobody can grill a hamburger, and cleaning toilets or smiling at customers needs no training. So there is no need to employ chefs or qualified staff - just anybody prepared to work for low wages. As there is no legally-enforced minimum wage in Britain, McDonald's can pay what they like, helping to depress wage levels in the catering trade still further. They say they are providing jobs for school-leavers and take them on regardless of sex or race. The truth is McDonald's are only interested in recruiting cheap labor - which always means that disadvantaged groups, women and black people especially, are even more exploited by industry than they are already. McDonald’s also had to deal with advertising problems in 2003. A rule by the UK Advertising Standards Authority determined that the corporation had acted in breach of the codes of practice in describing how its French fries were prepared. A McDonald's print ad stated that "after selecting certain potatoes, we peel them, slice them, fry them and that's it." It showed a picture of a potato in a McDonald's fries box. In fact, the product was sliced, pre-fried, sometimes had dextrose added was then frozen, shipped, and re-fried and then had salt added. Sources: http://www.neumann.edu/academics/divisions/business/journal/review_08/Gibison.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_legal_cases http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/pretrial/factsheet.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_McNuggets