Epic win

In related news, it was a poem what done it

https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/17962765.crystal-palace-mum-says-poem-got-mcdonalds-plans-rejected/

So, it’s market leader in unnecessary plastic packaging.

Probably by an enormous margin considering how popular their food is.

There's an interesting post in the comments on that thread.

McDonalds wouldn't be opening a branch there if they didn't think that there would be high demand. They would be confident that they could sell hundreds of thousands of meals every month, considering its location in a city.

Does the fact that only 18 people wrote in support of the application mean that there is something excluding people who eat at McDonalds from being part of the planning process?

Ok, that makes more sense. Don't they include fruit in their BrainwashTheChildren Meals?

Still thought Tesco and Sainos, etc would shuffle more of that chopped fruit than Maccas given all those Lunch Meal Deal things. Perhaps fewer people go for fruit than I imagined. You lot are crisp junkies.

now i need some crisps

I guess a lot of people would eat at a McDonald's because it's there but wouldn't actively do anything to get a new one approved.

Question about franchises - does McDonald's choose a location based on demand and then find a franchisee, or does a franchisee find somewhere and then ask McDonald's to become one?

I think the fruit bag is an option instead of chips with the Happy Meal. Or 49p extra with chips. Either way its shit.

Yeah, that fact caught me off guard too.

The former. They choose the location.

It is incredibly hard to be selected to own a franchise. It takes a whole lot of money and a significant (nearly 2 years on and off) amount of unpaid work to even get the chance to be offered one including 6 months unpaid flipping burgers. The cost varies by location, but its not unheard of to need £2m cash.

EDIT: Just noticed that your 6 months unpaid restaurant experience happens after your first interview and before your second and third interviews, before you have even been approved to buy a franchise.

I am not a blind McDonalds fanboy, but from a business and maintenance of food standards perspective, they are simply phenomenal in what they do.

just to add to stonehedge's comments, property is an essential part of MD's business. For a lot of properties they operate sale and lease back to the franchisee. In other cases they make the franchisee buy the property. One way or another, their investment in a franchise is typically asset backed.

20 year sale and lease is the standard term offered to a new franchisee now days.

Sorry peeps, I'm a bit of a business management nerd and have been helping a couple of small independent chains prepare for franchising recently. McDonalds, love them or loathe them, are the franchising gold standard. That and I love a Big Mac. Hence my interest in the area.

An acquaintance of mine got in trouble with the owner of the McDonald's where he worked because he drank and served to his colleagues coffee that was meant for the customers.

While waiting for the police.

After being held at gunpoint by masked robbers.

From a business perspective that's a phenomenal example of keeping losses to a minimum.

I only know one franchise owner directly but anecdotally I have been told that there is a huge difference in employee experience depending on whether you are working for a franchise manager who just wants to make money, or a franchise manager who is there for the people. My friend is the latter, he works a full week alongside his staff and usually has a big grin on his face while doing so. He just loves helping kids gain experience. Its actually a pleasure to observe from a distance.

At a guess I'd say that the money grabbing owner must be more common than the people focussed owner however if you are fortunate enough to work for a franchise owner who is passionate about their staff, you'll be hard pushed to find a better company to work for while you're studying.

If you're fortunate enough to work for McDonalds corporate, they are right up there for pay, renumeration and work life balance.

So, yeah, perhaps the majority of McDonalds staff just have a McJob and get treated badly but in the right hands, it can be a a potent community developer.

a franchise manager who is there for the people.

As someone who works in the public sector, can you explain this concept to me, it just doesn't compute!

Pretty sure all but one of the managers in my workplace have gotten to where they are by being fucking useless and because it's far easier to promote someone (moving them to another location) than to fire them.

I did 10 years in the NHS so I hear you.

Believe it or not, there are people out there where human interaction and helping people is what gets them out of bed in the morning.

Why don't we see more of that behaviour encouraged? Because for a corporation, this is the hierarchy of priorities:

1 Share holders
2 Compliance & Regulation
......
....
.....
....
....
96 People
97 The environment.

1 in 8 of all US employees have worked at McDonald's. The US has a workforce of 180 million people.

22.5 million people in the US have worked at McDonald's.

For perspective, the entire UK workforce is ~30 million.

39.6% of US adults age 20 and over are obese. Do you want fries with that?

He just loves helping kids gain weight

The kids at my nephew's school see McDonalds as a luxury. Their pocket money gets spent on Greggs sausage rolls and £1 fried chicken.

Kids aren't obese because of McDonalds. They're obese from poor parenting.

+1
Parenting. The most important and influential career in history and there's no training.

Well yeah, but McDonald’s probably isn’t reducing childhood obesity...

There are about 1,000 branches of McDonald's in England. There are about 60,000 other takeaways in England.

Deep pan pizza, Chinese, fried chicken, even Greggs offer more calorific food than McDomalds serve. I appreciate that McDonalds do it in a particularly child "friendly" way but I do also think that McDonalds is the low hanging fruit in the battle against obesity.

Deliveroo, justeat, Uber eats all play their parts. School meals are generally unhealthy. Home cooking doesn't exactly keep people slim a lot of the time. The UK has a nutrition problem, not a Mcdonalds problem.

Poverty is the greatest cause of obesity.

And closure of youth clubs and activities. Why do people think that kids hang out in McDonalds?

On the subject of poverty, it was price competition that caused Jay Rayner's "healthy chicken shops for kids" experiment to fold in Tottenham.