Carriages Continental Breads The Wool Exchanges Hustlergate Bradford West Yorkshire 01274 744114

Carriages Continental Breads, The Wool Exchanges, Hustlergate, Bradford, West Yorkshire (01274 744114) ‘Baking with Passion’, by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington, published by Quadrille, £18.99. Travel to any major city in any corner of the globe and the chances are you will come across a McDonald’s. The company now operates more than 25,000 restaurants in over 115 countries and territories. And not only has McDonald’s overtaken Coca-Cola as the best-known brand on the planet, but its trademark “Golden Arches” are said to be more widely recognised than the Christian cross. There is even a “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”, first proposed by Thomas Friedman in the The New York Times and subsequently confirmed by researchers at the “McDonald’s University” in Illinois, which states that no country with a McDonald’s has ever gone to war with another one similarly blessed – indeed, the company has always been careful to steer clear of the world’s worst political and economic trouble spots. But despite critics’ claims of American fast-food imperialism, the reason for the 50-year-old burger chain’s relentlessly successful global expansion is its ability to adapt to local markets.

Not only do

Travel to any major city in any corner of the globe and the chances are you will come across a McDonald’s. The company now operates more than 25,000 restaurants in over 115 countries and territories. And not only has McDonald’s overtaken Coca-Cola as the best-known brand on the planet, but its trademark “Golden Arches” are said to be more widely recognised than the Christian cross. There is even a “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”, first proposed by Thomas Friedman in the The New York Times and subsequently confirmed by researchers at the “McDonald’s University” in Illinois, which states that no country with a McDonald’s has ever gone to war with another one similarly blessed – indeed, the company has always been careful to steer clear of the world’s worst political and economic trouble spots.

But despite critics’ claims of American fast-food imperialism, the reason for the 50-year-old burger chain’s relentlessly successful global expansion is its ability to adapt to local markets. Not only does it assimilate itself commercially in each country through partnership and franchising deals, it also customises its food and drink and operating practices, from closing five times a day for Muslim prayers in Riyadh to serving Kosher produce in Tel Aviv to offering the above culinary curiosities, most of which are not to be found on a high street near you.

United Kingdom: The British are Europe’s biggest consumers of fast food, spending an estimated £2.7bn in 1999 according to market research analysts Mintel, compared with £1.6bn in France and just £310m in Italy. Competition in this country between McDonald’s and Burger King is intense, but McDonald’s still controls three-quarters of the market, with around 1,000 outlets. Britain’s first McDonald’s opened in Woolwich, south-east London in 1974, when a hamburger cost a mere 18 pence. The original burger formula remains the same – a beef patty crowned with pickles, ketchup and mayonnaise in sesame bun – but pride of place on the menu now goes to the Big Mac, originally called the Big Boy.
Germany: The hamburger, as the name suggests, acquired its name in Hamburg, probably in the 19th century when the grilled cake of minced beef was a staple of seamen working out of the port, but the food’s origins go further back than that, some say to the Russian bitock, a beef cake. It was Hamburg’s sailors who took the burger to the US, which in turn has brought it back to Germany, with a number of side-orders.

These include frankfurters (from Frankfurt, of course) and beer. The Germans are avid consumers of fast food, second only to Britain in Europe. The Germany operation recently signed a deal to open in branches of the American supermarket giant Wal-Mart, which has been operating in Germany for two years.
India: To India’s majority Hindu population, the cow is of course sacred – something of a problem, one might think, given that hamburgers are made of beef. But McDonald’s has done the impossible and made a success of its three-year-old Indian operation. The company came up with the Maharaja Mac as its main menu item. The usual burger filling is replaced with two pieces of lamb garnished with a “special sauce” plus the familiar accompaniments of lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions inside a sesame-seed bun. Other specially created offerings include an Indian-style vegetable burger, vegetable nuggets (both prepared separately from meat products) and masala and chilli sauce dips.
Japan: There are 2,400 branches of McDonald’s in Japan, serving everything from a traditional cheeseburger to the Teriyaki Burger (a meat patty in teriyaki sauce).