Adam Chandler
Appearances
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
It's a great question, and it's a funny thing because fast food chains have really tried over the years to be steered in these directions to try things that are healthier or use better ingredients. And in some instances, they have.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
A lot of fast food restaurants have made pledges to sort of phase out trans fat or palm oil or, you know, McDonald's doesn't fry their French fries in beef tallow anymore, which is, you know, it was a big concession that they made. Chicken McNuggets, for example, and the rise of chicken generally is partially because the protein is cheaper. But around this late 1970s, the U.S. Senate
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
passed a huge report and sort of an initiative to tell people you need to eat less red meat because it's a problem for our heart health. And we got the Chicken McNugget a few years later as a concession to that. And it's funny to think we're eating fried chicken bits instead of hamburgers as a forward-thinking way to be healthier. But that's kind of how fast food has worked.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And what's interesting about that in particular is...
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
mcdonald's and other fast food places put salads on their menus they've tried to do these measures to offer new things but when you go to a mcdonald's you tend not to think about that you tend not to want you're not there for salad and that is a real reason why those menu items tend not to last very long because that's just not the association people have with it they think of
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Going somewhere and indulging themselves and relaxing and not thinking about the calorie counts, whether they post them or not. So it's kind of built into the experience that this is something that is an indulgence. Although, you know, this is something that's funny because you'll hear people from other generations talk about it.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
McDonald's or Burger King or any of these places being a special treat that you went to once in a while. And the reality of it is that a third of Americans will eat at a fast food restaurant every single day. That's basically how the CDC has broken down the statistics around it. They know that
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
that many americans are eating fast food on a given day you know that's that's ultimately a bad thing for public health and it's a bad thing for communities and a lot for a lot of other reasons but it also speaks to the success of of what they're offering at fast food restaurants that is affordable and accessible culinarily as well as just from a convenience standpoint
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Right, right. I've actually had a good salad at McDonald's when they offered them. But again, it's not what you tend to go to McDonald's for. And what's interesting about this also is they've done really fascinating studies around what they call health halos, which
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
may think of in terms of like a chipotle was seen as a place where you would go and have something a little bit healthier because they market themselves as being not fast food they cook the food in front of you or you can see it and they talk about the ingredients that they use being better but it's just as unhealthy as if not more so unhealthy than a lot of other fast food restaurants but it has this health halo around it
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And another study that focuses on consumer perceptions found that when you see a menu item that is healthier, like a salad on a McDonald's menu or a Burger King menu, you automatically feel better about everything else you eat there.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
It's a psychological trick that if you go somewhere and you see something healthy, it gives you the sense that there is something wholesome in everything that you could possibly eat there and therefore healthy.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
It's safer to eat, which is, you know, a fun trick that, you know, our minds kind of play on us and that consumer psychologists have become aware of as a way to kind of steer us towards continuing to eat what we want to eat.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Why do they do that?
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
exactly exactly that's another thing that separates fast food from a lot of other chains or a lot of other businesses in the restaurant industry is that they have these rotating dishes and um standbys but also new limited time offerings that's what they're called in the industry um that kind of appear and and pop up for a minute and they're meant to generate buzz and interest and then they go away and it's funny because you'll see people very passionate about that uh there are
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
You know, countless petitions filed when certain items go off of the menus because people are so fond of them, they want them to be permanent. But in reality, they're kind of just to gin up another visit or two out of people who eat fast food pretty regularly. And then there's something like the McRib, which is its own kind of cultural institution thing.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
People love the McRib and sometimes only eat McDonald's when the McRib comes back on the menu. And that's its own kind of funny subculture. But the limited time offerings is such a funny kind of specific thing.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
fast food gimmick that i think people really get behind in part because it's just fun i mean it's just something that comes out of nowhere you know every every few weeks or every few months from your from your favorite chain the the ideas behind them are are so kind of strange sometimes you know nacho fries is just being a phenomenon it's one of the most successful limited time offerings that taco bell's ever put out but it's just
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
French fries with cheese, with nacho cheese on them. It's not anything groundbreaking, but we're sort of coaxed into believing it's something greater than that. And I think that's what's part of the fun of fast food in this way is it's very unserious. It doesn't take itself too intensely. And the commercials are fun and the marketing is fun and the food is fun.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
It's just not precious in a way that I think a lot of food culture is precious about itself.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
the founders of fast food are always an interesting story in and of itself. You know, you think about someone like Colonel Sanders who grew up in deep poverty. You know, he was basically pressed with raising his, his brothers and sisters after his father died and his mother had to go work. And he went on to become one of the most famous men in the world.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
You know, there are so many of these stories and the myth that, the myth and facts of fast food that really stand out that I think are so fascinating. You know, Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame was an acolyte of Colonel Sanders. So, there's this interesting connection there.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Dave Thomas was an orphan and had an adopted family take care of him and he was always kind of searching for father figures in his life and Colonel Sanders turned out to be one of them. So these founder stories are really impressive when you look at them. Ray Kroc is another example. He was the one who took over McDonald's from the McDonald's brothers.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And this is someone who failed for most of his life as a salesman trying to find his way into the American dream. And sort of late in his life, he manages to turn McDonald's into this international juggernaut. So what I think is really impressive about this story of fast food broadly is that it really speaks to a time where
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
American opportunity was on the rise, and I think that that's one aspect of fast food that we tend not to think about. Well, it's certainly fun to talk about this.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
When you see a menu item that is healthier, like a salad on a McDonald's menu, you automatically feel better about everything else you eat there. It gives you the sense that there is something wholesome in everything that you could possibly eat there, and therefore it's safer to eat.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
You know, my specific definition of the origins of fast food as it exists today, the most recognizable form was the birth of White Castle, which is, you know, a cult chain with about 400 locations these days that started in Omaha. Sorry, it started in Wichita, Nebraska in 1919. And that is...
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
What I would look at as the definitional fast food place in that it served quick food that was designed to be eaten on the go and served quickly. And we've seen this industry grow around cars. And that was one of the big parts of how. White Castle initially established itself. They had these portable sliders that were meant to be sold by the sackful.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
That was their motto at one point, selling them by the sack. And so it's been really interesting to kind of see how that has become such an iconic calling card of fast food is its association with.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
being mobile and driving and car culture and um you know fast affordability all of these real american hallmarks that kind of look at convenience and mobility and affordability and a real democratic way of eating that really separates american dining from the kinds of old school old world european dining that exists in other other parts of the world
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Fast food is uniquely American in the way that it interacts with our dining culture and our society. Absolutely. We do have the greatest concentration of fast food restaurants. We also have the greatest concentration of drivers. And so those two things really intertwine to make this possible.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
formula of uh convenience roadside dining that is really hard to replicate in other countries that just don't have that kind of relationship with with work or with travel or with their cars and so um yeah we really are uniquely a fast food nation to borrow um you know the title of eric schlosser's book so white castle starts in the early 20th century
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Yeah, the growth of fast food was a bit slow at the beginning. I mean, it sort of intersected with the Model T in the roaring 20s, but that eventually was undercut by the Great Depression. So there were a lot of small burger chains that existed during that period, and a lot of them kind of fell by the wayside.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
But the real boom of fast food, the recognizable boom of fast food, really dovetails with the post-war boom, where we see You know, these prohibitions and restrictions on gasoline and steel be lifted after the war and this economic boom and this baby boom and the building of the highway system, the building of suburbs, people started having commutes and two income households.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
So all these social forces align that kind of made dining culture become a new thing in American life that it previously wasn't. And that's really what's so fascinating about it is, You kind of travel around the country, as I did to drive through James, and you spend time in places and you think, it's really strange that there are these ubiquitous fast food places.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
But if you look back 50 or 60 years, it kind of makes perfect sense that they emerged based on how our society was and the way it was organized and the way that we were sort of living at that time. And it's just become a normal feature of American life. You know, stats are a little old, but, you know, in the recent years, 95% of Americans eat fast food every single year.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And that is more than the amount of people who use the internet. It really is a surprising statistic when you think about the sort of ubiquity and adoption of fast food by nearly all Americans.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And that's something that kind of makes it special and unique in ways that a lot of things today in particular are divisive and polarizing and not harnessing this mass appeal that we see in something like fast food.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. McDonald's is kind of a shorthand in a lot of instances for fast food. When you talk about fast food, McDonald's is often the first thing that comes up, at least in American fast food.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
I mean, it's interesting because there are so many interesting global versions of McDonald's in the world where they serve different food items and the stores look different. And even when you go inside, the feeling of them is different. It's kind of like a special occasion place or a date place in other countries. But here, you know, it has this common casual everyday kind of thing about it.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And that's part of the magic of it. And what's really impressive about the story of McDonald's is that it really kind of brought this franchise model that we see not just in fast food, but in nearly all industries have these franchise models into fashion. I guess the limelight of American business.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
You didn't have to have a college degree or come from wealth to start a McDonald's in the 1960s or 70s. You could just be willing to work hard and open up a shop and It would do well because it had name recognition. If you were a small business owner, you could get a loan more easily to open a McDonald's because it was a proven business.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
So there are all these things around the model of McDonald's that kind of made it this very special thing that no other company had really done in the same way. And it just took off and it got a head start on all the other chains and it never looked back.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
It was seen as technologically advanced. It was seen as a marvel that you could order a burger and have it come out within 30 seconds or 45 seconds. And that's still kind of the standard. They try to keep orders as quick as possible because that's really what people want more than the taste. People really value the speed and convenience of fast food.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And at the time, you know, we may see that as dystopian today, getting your food in less than a minute or two. At least some people certainly do. But back then that was seen as a kind of a space age marvel that you could create a system where you had so many processes in place that you could create a meal that would come together that fast.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And so that's really a funny, unique part of the story is that we were enchanted by this technology that now, you know, in the rise of the foodie era and the slow food movement and all of these different ways of looking at foodways, we kind of look askance at it now. We're not quite as enchanted by it as we once were. Some people absolutely are, but...
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
That was something that initially was seen as one of the huge benefits of it is that you blink and your meal is ready and you can go on your way. Yeah.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
Absolutely. Yeah, it's a really convenience-focused thing. entity. And when you buck that model with any slight delay, people get irate. And it's fascinating to see. Part of the appeal of fast food is the familiarity of it, the predictability of it. convenience, knowing basically how long it's going to take, what it's going to cost and what it's going to taste like.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
So you can kind of diagram that experience in your mind and wherever you're going, you know that it's kind of going to be the same, whether you're at a McDonald's in California or you're at a Burger King in Kansas or you're at a Taco Bell in Wisconsin, you can kind kind of tell what the experience is going to be like.
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
And so when anything deviates from that, it obviously brings up some anger for people who chose a place based on a preconceived notion they have of it. But that's also part of the strength of the brands that...
Something You Should Know
Why We Love Fast Food & What Will Make You Successful
of that experience that you know exactly what you're going to get and that's very comforting to people and that's a real meaningful part of why fast food has managed to succeed and managed to stay as this food movement that is so popular and so powerful all these decades later