The Golden Arches around the Globe

            When Dick and Mac McDonald opened the doors to the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California in 1940, the world would never be the same (mcspotlight). Today McDonald’s has over 25,660 restaurants worldwide and has an estimated annual sale of nearly $29 billion dollars (restaurants, annual).  The growth of the McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain has been rapid and strategic. Not only has McDonald’s changed to accommodate its international success, but aspects of cultures around the world have also changed due to the globalization of fast food. Dr. Jia Lu, PhD in Communication, suggests that “McDonald’s is often used to illustrate the international pervasiveness of the American fast food industry” (Lu, 620). While this claim may be true, it is also possible that other cultures have influenced McDonald’s and diversification has taken place as much as homogenization has across the globe.

            After the first McDonald’s opened in 1940, the chain began growing—and never stopped. By 1959 the 100^th restaurant opened in Chicago. By 1963 the 500^th was opened, the one billionth hamburger was sold, and the company’s net income exceeded one million dollars (mcspotlight). By this point Ray Kroc had purchased the McDonald’s concept for $2.7 million; and this was just the beginning. The first restaurants outside of the U.S. opened in 1967 in Canada and Puerto Rico. Within the next four years, McDonald’s had expanded to eight more countries. This rapid international expansion continued for many years. By 1972, “assets exceeded $500 million and sales surpassed $1 billion” (mcspotlight). At this point, a new McDonald’s restaurant was opening every day. In 1984, McDonald’s had well over 1,000 international restaurants and served “17 million customers a day—equivalent to serving lunch to the entire population of Australia and New Zealand” (mcspotlight). If all the hamburgers sold between 1955 and 1984 were lined up, they would reach to the moon and back five times (mcspotlight). Business was definitely booming, and it wasn’t stopping any time soon. By 1994 the company consisted of over 15,000 restaurants in 79 countries on 6 different continents (mcspotlight). The globalization of McDonald’s had been very successful. The company had revolutionized restaurant business and food culture throughout the world. Thanks to McDonald’s, the fast food phenomenon had swept the globe.

            Not only had the company expanded exponentially, but new menu items were constantly being added to accommodate the tastes of new customers. For example, fried beef patties may appeal to American audiences, but they certainly would not have the same effect on Hindus living in India; and so the Chicken Maharaja Mac was born. German menus offer beer, Canadians can purchase McLobster lobster rolls, and Japanese restaurants serve shrimp burgers (Adams). The new menu items are sometimes an entirely different from American options, such as Gallo Pinto (rice and beans) available in Costa Rica. In other cases, the American menu is tweaked just slightly to appeal to other cultural tastes. For example, in Hong Kong burgers are served with rice patties as a bun, and in Greece burgers are wrapped in a pita (Adams). While McDonald’s has brought aspects of American style restaurants to other countries and maintained the standardization of a fast food chain, these menu changes show how it has also assimilated somewhat to other cultures in order to appeal to a variety of tastes.

            The characteristics of McDonald’s that are distinctly standard aspects of American food values show the homogenization of cultures around the world, while the ways McDonald’s changes to appeal to the local culture of a foreign nation show the diversification of fast food culture. While few current scholars “agree with the oversimplified position of cultural homogenization, what still remains unclear is to what extent homogenization and diversification occur in the international expansion of the American fast food industry” (Lu, 620). As McDonald’s expanded and continues to expand into new countries and new cultures, variety and diversity is maintained due to underlying cultural differences. At the same time, cultural barriers are being broken down and several aspects of food culture are now shared worldwide.

Diversification can easily be seen when observing the application of “cultural proximity” in the globalization of McDonald’s. The theory of cultural proximity argues that the most appealing media is that which is “closest, most proximate or most directly relevant to [the audience] in cultural and linguistic terms” (Lu, 620). Cultural proximity allows local audiences to “selectively appropriate foreign media products. It is a diversifying process in which the audience’s cultural identities shape interpretation and reception of foreign media products, and adapt them into their daily life” (Lu, 620). The pressure of being culturally proximate can be seen in McDonald’s menu changes from country to country. Offering items such as guacamole on burgers in Chile or the McHuevo egg burger in Uruguay are McDonald’s attempts of appealing to the taste of the local culture (Adams). Different cultures have distinctly different tastes. Fast food consumers throughout the world have “tastes and eating habits [that] are different from Americans” (Lu, 620). The audience, in a way, chooses what items will be on the menu by associating certain foods with their culture. Cultural proximity focuses on diversification by “assimilating more local cultural elements…and [offering] the products/services that are culturally approximate to local audiences” (Lu, 622). This idea has not only made the globalization of McDonald’s successful, but has also maintained some diversity in food cultures around the globe.

Often times what American fast food chains “represent is not a true cultural proximity but that of desire of aspiration” (Lu, 620). Another definition of proximity focuses on homogenization by “maintaining a distinctive foreign identity loaded with modern/global themes…and [offering] a desired, standardized model of modernity to attract local customers” (Lu, 621). It is good for McDonald’s to be culturally relevant to an audience, but the whole concept of an international American food chain, to some extent, appeals to an audience as well. The foreign identity, specifically the American identity, of McDonald’s associates the restaurant chain with economic and technological advancement and modernization. Because of this, customers expect some standardization and consistency among all McDonald’s restaurants, no matter what country it is located in. The traditional view of modernity defines it as “a uniform, unambiguously structured and self-contained pattern in progress towards full realization and harmonious integration” (Lu, 621). The way modernity is regarded here—as a standard homogenizing process—poses threats to the diversity of existing cultures throughout the world. A newer idea of modernity, known as “multiple modernities”, does not “necessarily eradicate traditional…standpoints and practices but can become associated with different cultures” (Lu, 621).

The McDonald’s globalization strategy emphasizes the consistency of products and quality across countries and cultures. Focusing on “efficiency, predictability, calculability and replacement of human with non-human technology…McDonald’s has successfully standardized food, menus, tastes and restaurant environments all over the world” (Lu, 622). By establishing this standard expectation, McDonald’s has successfully created a solid, foreign identity that appeals to most non-American cultures. McDonald’s represents America “and the promise of modernization” (Lu, 622). The symbolic consumption of McDonald’s enables locals “to know about advanced modernity, and get connected to the global modernization process” (Lu, 622). People are attracted to the idea of McDonald’s and their products because of the international reputation the restaurant chain has. As an American fast food chain, McDonald’s seems to be more to foreign cultures than just burgers and fries, but rather a chance to be a part of the development of the modern world. The standardization of products and service in order to put on this identity of modernity has, in a way, homogenized the food cultures throughout the world. There are certain things that are maintained and remain consistent from country to country, culture to culture. Due to the association between McDonald’s and modernity, the gap between the unique tastes of foreign cultures is closing as the globalization of fast food continues.

McDonald’s has taken over the global fast food market in less than seventy five years. The globalization of this company has been very rapid and very successful. Not only has McDonald’s changed to be more culturally proximate to foreign customers, but it has also worked hard to maintain a sense of standardization in an attempt to create a foreign identity associated with modernization. Changing to appeal to different cultures has encouraged diversification among food cultures, while the desire for consistency from nation to nation has begun to homogenize the world’s tastes. Because of the way the relationship between “homogenization and diversification transforms each other and generates hybridity…it is hard to distinguish western food and local food as well as modern/global values and local traditional ones” (Lu, 630). The globalization of fast food is changing all of the food cultures in the world. The growth of McDonald’s has both encouraged the diversity of taste, and standardized the way people eat. The wide variety of cultures and tastes in the world has certainly affected the way McDonald’s operates and McDonald’s has no doubt forever changed the way the world sees food.

References

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            http://www.mcspotlight.org/company/company_history.html April 26, 2012.

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