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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
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 Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:32 am Post subject: US - UK: a not-so-special relationship for Brits ? |
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I am curious to know what Americans think of the near-hysterical venom of the following article, published in the Guardian.
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I'm lovin' it
The week brought great news for fans of real food: falling sales have forced the closure of 25 UK McDonald's branches. Could this be a tipping point? Asks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Saturday March 4, 2006
The Guardian
We all have our fantasy headlines - the announcement of events of global or national significance that chime irresistibly with our own personal values and ambitions. "Texas oil reserves found to be unlimited" would probably be George Bush's. Though I suppose it might be trumped by "WMDs found in Iraq - and Iran".
Well, I almost got to see one of mine this week. "McDonald's goes bust!" - that would have been the undiluted, full-fat, maximum-caffeine version. In truth the news isn't quite that spectacular. But it's pretty brilliant all the same: "McDonald's to close 25 stores in the UK". Yes! For me, and no doubt others who share my loathing of this huge ugly lump of global corporate muscle, this is an air-punching moment. All morning after I heard, I was wandering about in daze of delighted disbelief. And when I'd done with the air-punching, I went for the double forearm salute, shouting "YES!" again, through clenched teeth, to my two clenched fists. A childish reaction, perhaps, but schadenfreude is primordial stuff. And the bigger the beast that's fallen, the greater the glee. In short, I'm lovin' it!
Article continues
At last, it seems that McDonald's is losing its hitherto stellar domination of the vast fast-food market in this country. This is not a regional or temporary blip, or a mere tactical realignment. They really are in trouble. Their poor performance in Britain dragged profit margins from McDonald's European company-owned restaurants down to 14.9% of sales last year - from 15.6% in 2004. No new openings are planned for the coming year. Even McDonald's European boss, Denis Hennequin, is struggling to put a happy face on the situation: "The UK has been in negative territory for a couple of years now," he admitted. "The brand 15 years ago was very trendy and modern. It is now tired."
This is dramatic stuff. It was only a few years ago that the march of the Golden Arches seemed inexorable. As recently as 2002, we heard that four new stores were opening somewhere on the planet every day. McDonald's were able to buy the endorsement of any global superstar they felt might enhance their brand. Their supremely aggressive advertising, coupled with relentless merchandising tie-ins with Hollywood blockbuster kids' movies, gave them untold power over the minds, and consequently stomachs, of our kids. They had seemed, for a couple of decades, literally unstoppable. The halting of such a seemingly irresistible force is no mean feat. It smacks of revolution. And as we celebrate (dancing in the high street may not be excessive) we should ask: how has this been brought about?
There's no doubt in my mind that the guests of honour at the big McClosure bash should be Morgan Spurlock, maker of the documentary Super Size Me, and Helen Steel and Dave Morris of the McLibel trial, now reworked into a stunning feature documentary. (Incidentally, I think Jamie Oliver deserves a few popped corks, too. McDonald's were not the focus of his school dinners campaign. But they must have suffered by implication. In the end it is easier for concerned parents to steer their children clear of the Golden Arches than it is for schools to reinvent the greasy wheel of the school canteen. Of course we all want this to happen, and parental pressure is the only way it will. But it makes sense for parents to put at least some of their money where their mouths are. In other words, for Turkey Twizzlers read Chicken McNuggets throughout.)
As McDonald's themselves have known for a long time, entertainment is one of the most powerful marketing tools there is - hence Ronald McDonald, and every merchandising deal they have ever done. So to see entertainment used as a weapon against them has been especially satisfying. The two McMovies between them have certainly done a magnificent job of exposing McDonald's as a horrendous corporate bully, and a peddler of nutritionally bankrupt junk.
But much more importantly than that, for my money, is the way they have encouraged us no longer either to fear McDonald's or to genuflect to their supremacy, but to laugh at them. The best piece of pure farce to emerge from the McLibel trial was the revelation that McDonald's had hired at least four private detectives to infiltrate the London Greenpeace campaign group. What's more, not all the investigators were made aware of each other's existence. They therefore ended up wasting fantastic amounts of their time and McDonald's money investigating each other.
Super Size Me, as well as being a sizzling indictment of the devastating effect of the McDonald's diet on the human body, is also a very funny film. And some of its humour is of the gross-out variety so beloved of a teenage audience - Spurlock vomiting up his supersized Happy Meal before he even gets out of the drive-in is practically a Farrelly brothers moment.
Almost as funny as the sight of McDonald's floundering public image is the sight of them trying to do something about it. In their desperate effort to reinvent themselves as a "healthy option" McD's are doing a grand job of making themselves look ridiculous.
They may for decades have been frighteningly brilliant at selling burgers and fries, but they have, for the past year or so, revealed themselves to be comically bad at selling salads and fruit. According to reports in America, some of their salad meals, once topped with the gunk they call a dressing, contain as much fat as a quarter-pounder with cheese plus a regular fries. If so, that is nothing short of appalling, but it is on balance still funnier than it is sad.
Everyone knows that the best way to disempower the playground bully is to make him a laughing stock. And this, joyfully, is what's starting to happen to McDonald's. This is apt, as it is in the playground that they are most vulnerable. Kids may be easy to reach and influence; showering them with gifts and attention, and glamorous associations with what is cool and happening in their world can be brutally effective. But kids can be ruthless, too, when the lustre of desirability starts to fade, in turning their backs on the people, the trends - the brands - they once loved. The most devastating news for McDonald's, and the thing they can do least about, is that they are becoming seriously uncool. A survey published last week revealed that Britain's teenagers are turning their backs on the Golden Arches in droves. Just 1% of 13- to 15-year-olds said McDonald's was their favourite meal, down 7% on a year ago.
We have more to relish here than the satisfying sight of Egg McMuffin on face. The point is not that fast-food culture is on the wane - far from it. In fact, the denting of McDonald's comes at a time when the takeaway sector generally continues to grow. But as it expands, it is also diversifying. These days, in the clusters of fast-food outlets in our major cities, we are starting to find, dotted among the big names in burgers, chicken and pizza, some genuine alternatives: the big-name coffee shops, of course, but also juice bars, sushi restaurants, fruit and nut stands, bagel bars, pasty parlours, soup and salad takeaways - and even the occasional organic burger joint. Of course, not all these new ventures are paragons of culinary virtue. Many leave a lot to be desired - some in their trading ethics, others for poor nutrition, or simply a lack of good taste. But it's none the less true that, taking the fast-food sector as a whole, the possibility of an encounter with what we might call "real food" is definitely on the up.
This is particularly encouraging, not because of any significant change in the sense of where we are now, as much as where we might get to in the not-too-distant future. The fast-food restaurant and takeaway sector has always been a magnet to entrepreneurs. There is clearly an increasing perception among such entrepreneurs that the mood and the opportunities in this sector are changing. In the newest, most innovative forays into fast-food - places such as Quiet Revolution, Eat, Love Juice, and Benugo's - there is an emphasis not only on healthy alternatives, but transparency, traceability and the provenance of ingredients.
It's tempting to ask, then, whether this is some kind of a tipping point in our food culture. Is it the beginning of the end of the domination of the mediocre, the mass produced and the homogenous? Is the tide of junk really turning? Are we as a nation, and is our youth in particular, becoming a little less susceptible to the remorseless clout of marketing megabucks? Are we at last beginning to ask what's really in our food, and question whether it should be there? Are we finally beginning to think and work out for ourselves how best to feed ourselves, what good food really is, and the part it can play in keeping us happy and healthy, and effective at work and play?
To answer a resounding yes would be a touch premature. It's hard to argue that the good food revolution has already achieved an unstoppable momentum, when there are still kids all over the country breakfasting on Coke, crisps and chocolate bars (and there are still schools selling them this crap in their own corridors). Figures on child obesity are still heading up. Most school meals are still are a nutritionally depleted, over-processed disgrace.
But we can at least say that some important messages are starting to get through. In the same survey that saw McDonald's popularity plummet among teenagers, only 12% of 800 comprehensive school students said they did not eat healthily and nearly half of the 13 to 15-year-olds said they ate fresh fruit and vegetables every day, an increase of 14% on last year. McDonald's becoming uncool is obviously a boost to any campaign for better, healthier eating. But the idea that fresh fruit and vegetables might actually become cool for kids is, in the long term, even more important - and exciting.
For me, the biggest boost to come from the news about McDonald's is the sense it gives of what changes might now be possible elsewhere in the food sector. It gives heart to other campaigns that strive to liberate our food culture from even more powerful corporate beasts.
The real stranglehold on our food culture comes not from the behemoth fast-food brands, but from the big four supermarkets: Tesco, Morrisons, Asda/Wal-Mart and Sainsbury's. Between them, they control 75% of the grocery market in the UK. There are hundreds of thousands of farmers and food producers, here and all over the world, selling groceries to tens of millions of British shoppers. Yet the growing, processing, distribution and sale of all that food is controlled by just four companies. That has to be unhealthy. If it wasn't for the tremendous diversity, commitment, passion and creativity that is, against all the odds, being preserved in the 25% of the market they do not yet control, you could say that the supermarkets own our food culture.
For me, then, the true tipping point will come when significant numbers of consumers begin to say to the supermarkets: enough of your bullying tactics to farmers and producers, your misleading labelling and spurious nutritional information, enough of the systematic suffering of livestock in intensive systems, driven by you, as you push the price points lower and lower, enough of your dirty, polluting, wasteful food miles, and your outrageous, undemocratic flouting of planning law and the opinions of local people.
The way to be effective is to change the way you shop. You don't have to stop going to supermarkets, but you do have to take from their shelves only those products you believe are honestly and ethically traded, transparently labelled, environmentally sustainable, and not abusive of either animals or people. And go elsewhere for the rest.
This is a lot to ask of the nation's shoppers, and until recently the possibility of bringing about genuine change in the dominant food retail culture seemed fanciful. Raising a groundswell of popular opinion to question the supermarkets' methods, their ethics and the true value of their contribution to our society felt like a hopeless task. But now, with Britain's unambiguous backlash against McDonald's giving hope to this campaign, nothing seems impossible. Things are already hotting up on the battleground. Will Tesco try to sue the Tescopoly activists and embarrass themselves, McLibel style, in the process? Will the Wal-Mart film, The High Cost of Low Price, prove to be the Super Size Me of supermarket culture, helping to deflate, and ultimately disarm another mighty corporate bully?
Let's hope so. Because if such once unimaginable events do occur, I might just get to see one of my other fantasy headlines: "Tesco in turmoil! Shoppers desert supermarkets for born-again high streets". www.rivercottage.net
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1723272,00.html |
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:40 am Post subject: |
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It didn't seem all that venomous to me. I didn't think it was very well written. The writer comes across as being against big companies in any form in my opinion. Maybe they where trying to grab readers attention with the opening 10 paragraphs but to me they could have been thrown out and it would have been a better article. Certainly the author had some good points but if I had just been reading the paper I would have read the first paragraph and then skipped the rest.
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Chris Stewart
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lekizz
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Good for Hugh! He may have one of the daftest name in Britain and live the idealist middle-class life growing vegetables on a smallholding, but his sentiments are good. |
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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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British fresh produce used to be very good - OK, the variety could be limited at certain times of year, but the quality was good.
why he needs to attack McDonalds is what baffles me. His remarks are close to defamatory.
the problem is that not everybody can grow their own produce (and certainly not enough or the variety to feed themselves). Britain's food infrastructure has been steadily destroyed. The local butchers, abattoirs, bakers, have mostly gone - as have many of the market gardens, apple orchards, etc.
- and so have the large gardens and the allottments.
in addition, the cooking and preserving skills need to be re-found and to be acquired by new generations.
so what can the country do ? First off, introduce proper food labelling and you would be in for a nasty shock.
I am not sure about the author of the article, but Jamie Oliver is right in his concerns.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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lekizz
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, Jamie Oliver has done a fantastic job. That is something that maybe makes the UK less comfortable for greasy Jo's like McD's.
You are absolutely right about re-learning how to appreciate good local food. Certainly Continental Europeans are brought up to appreciate quality food - part of that is having the time to appreciate it, reasonable periods for lunch for example 
At the moment Spain sends all their worst fruit to us knowing full well we are the only people that will touch it  |
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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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interesting that you should mention 'greasy Jo's' - I remember the first time that I saw a British McDonalds - must have been the very early 70's. It was opposite an outlet - with hot food counter/cafe - for a British industrial bakers (since gone bust). We had not heard of salmonella in those days and the British place kept the sausage rolls and other delicacies at a tepid tempertature for a day or so - and was grimy to a fault.
opposite was what looked like a spaceship. It was chrome and glass and CLEAN. A food place that sparkled. It was McDonalds. One of the first in Britain, I believe.
was there no British equivalent ? Well, you are probably not old enough to remember the formica-wonder of the "Golden Egg" chain or the sorrow - even outrage - of the new motorways having service stations that put the old transport caffs out of business. Were the caffs clean enough to eat off the floor ? Ummm, in some cases the plates were no cleaner than the floor ....
Do I eat at McDonalds these days ? Do I heckaslike.
But you are not right about the 'long' continental lunches. They do exist, but most people go to their local place for the dish of the day, a glass of wine (maybe two, but not more), and maybe a pudding and a coffee.
This is normally what is known as bistro cooking. The price of the daily dish ? Here it is 8 to 10 euros.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:44 am Post subject: |
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Are there any British restaurant chains in the USA?
Maybe it is more of a compaint about American culture being exported than food quality (as far as the rant on McD's goes).
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 498
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:28 am Post subject: Food is now a political topic |
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First of all, the article was ok, tame, not bad!
McDonalds... I have always wondered what went into their beef, or fries, or oils to fry those foods, and sugar contents, etc.
But to me, bring over more British foods, I would say in a heartbeat.
Truth be told, some Brits have told me...
It's hard to find good tasting Fish and Chips in England anymore... and I can testify from the USA side... I don't know anywhere I could find a good tasting fish and chips place over here.
Please someone tell me... Name me a pub that gives the best Fish and Chips, in the New York Metro area... I don't think we have any... but on your word, I will go sample your suggested place and let everyone know!
Bland food is all we get overhere it seems... thank God for my wife's excellent cooking!
ITS HARD TO FIND FISH AND CHIPS IN ENGLAND ANYMORE!
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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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You don't think that English food is bland ?
Fried fish is a Jewish dish - which is how it was introduced to Britain. You want bland, Jewish restaurants do bland, but they should also do very good fried fish. However it is often served cold.
I was so fascinated that I looked up NY fish and chips on the internet.
English Harbor Fish & Chips 2 768 9th Ave. NY, 212-664-7966.
English Harbour Fish & Chips 246 E 14th St. NY, 212-777-5420.
Tea and Sympathy... 108 Greenwhich Ave. bet Jane & 13th Sts. 212-807-8329.
Didn't Kinky Friedman have a friend in NY who sold fine English foods ?
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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lekizz
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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Fish & Chips is a Jewish recipe, that is an interesting suggestion. Being an island I would have expected Britain to have a long tradition of cooking fish
I've always wondered what is actually a traditional British dish. British dishes these days also include the Anglicised chicken tikka masala's and vindaloo's which are even more popular than Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding.
There is a growing backlash against the international homogenisation of food, in the form of the Cittaslow/Slow Food movement. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 498
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: Fish and Chips in New York |
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Well, I didn't find the recommended New York City Fish and Chips places, but I did find a good alternative, on 2nd Avenue... between 4th and 5th...
A Salt and Battery
Fresh fish, about four varieties... taste was .... good... chips were good... and I would recommend it to anyone. Did I have some kind of cosmic tasting experience... not really.
So I guess I have to keep testing ....
If my expectations were "explosions of fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime" tasting experience... no. It didn't happen. But it was good. Maybe better than good by a smidge. B+
Rich is sort of right, again... maybe "fish and chips" is on the blander side of the taste-bud experience?!
Mexican food is definitly on the side of 'picante'. Indian food is the ultimate, 'over-the-top' spicy, too much for me.
Back to topic... McDonalds is on the level of ... "protein".
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csintexas
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:58 am Post subject: |
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Speaking of "Mexican Food" Here in Texas in my area of 200k+ people we have more "Mexican Food" resteraunts than McD's. I put quotes around it because what they would serve here is quite a bit different than what they would serve in Mexico and may better be called Texican Food.
As far as being healthy I doubt they are any better than McD's but they do taste better.
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Chris Stewart
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