The globalization
of American fast food has made a significant impact on the world at large.
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, fast food is food that can be
prepared quickly and easily and is sold in restaurants and snack bars as a
quick meal or to be taken out. The second definition, listed by the
Merriam-Webster dictionary, states that fast food is designed for ready
availability, use or consumption and with little consideration given to quality
or significance. The last definition is the main reason why fast food
creates such a controversy in America. In order to prepare food quickly, little
consideration is given to quality and therefore many people blame fast food for
weight gain and health issues. The fast food restaurants that we have become
familiar with in America are McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Subway, and
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to name a few. These restaurants, regardless of
the controversy they cause in America, have become very popular across the
world. The National Restaurant Association reported that in 2006 the global
fast food market grew by 4.8 percent and reached a value of 102.4 billion and a
volume of 80.3 billion transactions (1). Considering that there are only seven billion people in the world, 80.3 billion fast food transactions between consumers and restaurants is quite extraordinary. In this paper, I will look at the globalization
of American fast food restaurants around the world and the impact they have had on other cultures.
McDonald’s
currently has over 30,000 franchise outlets in 121 countries, and serves about
46 million people a day (2). McDonald’s has become known worldwide for their
golden arches, which has become as big an American symbol as the American flag.
On April 23, 1992, the largest McDonald's restaurant in the world opened in
Beijing, China. With 700 seats and 29 cash registers, the Beijing McDonald's
served 40,000 customers on its first day of business (3). In a book titled Golden Arches East, James L. Watson
discusses the influence that McDonald’s has had on East Asia. McDonald’s has
worked with the communities in China where they are located to create a menu
that fits their preferences. However, some worry that McDonald's is creating
cultural homogenization around the globe. Otherwise known as “McDonaldization”,
cultural homogenization is the concept that cultural diversity will be extinct
because one corporation would have the power to dictate how everybody ate, read, and
dressed. In this case, the fear is that
McDonald’s is controlling the eating patterns of those across the world by
offering essentially the same menu to everybody. However, in his book, Watson argues
against this by pointing out McDonald’s ability to adapt to the countries where they are located. McDonald’s offers espresso and cold pasta in Italy; chilled yogurt
drinks in Turkey; teriyaki hamburgers in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; a
grilled salmon sandwich called the McLak in Norway; and McSpaghetti in the
Philippines (4). McDonald’s has been more than just a restaurant to those in
East Asia. People in East Asia use the McDonald’s for after-school meeting
places, leisure centers, and as a place for birthday parties. Local patrons have even started
learning new eating habits through McDonald’s such as consuming french fries
and eating with their hands. Eating with a person’s hands was once a rare occurrence in Japan. Even something as seemingly common as standing in a line to wait
one’s turn to order from a pre-set and limited menu is in fact a cultural
adaptation (4).
Kentucky Fried
Chicken’s parent company, Yum! Brands Inc. operates 3,200 KFCs and 500 Pizza
Huts in 650 Chinese cities (5). In addition to owning KFC, Yum! Brands Inc. is
the parent company of A&W All-American Food Restaurants, Long John Silvers,
Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants. According to Euromonitor International, a
London-based market research firm, Yum! has a 40 percent market share among
fast-food chains in China compared with 16 percent for McDonald’s (5). The key
to KFC’s success, as with McDonald’s, is their ability to adapt to their
local markets. Yum! gives KFC customers in China the opportunity to purchase a
bowl of congee, a rice porridge that can feature pork, pickles, mushrooms and
preserved egg, as well as buy a bucket of its famous fried chicken. They also
offer a Dragon Twister, a chicken wrap in a Peking duck-type sauce, and spicy
tofu chicken rice based on the cuisine of Sichuan province, home of China’s
hottest dishes (5). A big part of their success, which is noticed by customers,
is that they bring a sense of cultural hybridity to their restaurants. KFC
knows the importance of cultural hybridity in the China markets so much that
they promoted the chairman of the China business, Sam Su, to vice chairman of
the main board in Louisville. Yum hires Chinese managers for their stores who
speak the same Mandarin Chinese as their customers. This also helps the company strengthen
ties with other local companies. These managers are also a big part of creating
the local cuisine for the menu as they bring their expertise in the culinary likes and dislikes of the culture. Su Yi, a Chinese KFC customer,
notices what KFC is doing, “KFC is certainly doing better than McDonald’s at
becoming more Chinese…I have lunch at KFC twice a week because there’s always
one close by. (5)”
The concept of
soft power can be applied to the globalization of American fast food. The
notion of soft power refers to the cultural, social, intellectual, and
ideological ideas, values, attitudes, and behaviors that influence human life
(4). As mentioned, the McDonald’s golden arches have become a symbol of America
for people in other countries. As one of Watson’s informants told him, "The
Big Mac doesn't taste great; but the experience of eating in this place makes
me feel good. Sometimes I even imagine that I am sitting in a restaurant in New
York City or Paris. (3)" Patrons of the McDonald’s in China eat there more
for the environment rather than the actual food itself. The soft power that
fast food restaurants are having around the world is the ability to sell an
image to a population that would not normally have access to the “American way
of life”. Therefore, those who like what
they experience in the American fast food restaurants change their eating habits,
areas of socialization and even ways of communication. A comparison of customer
behavior in McDonald's and that in comparably priced or more expensive Chinese
restaurants shows that people in McDonald's were, on the whole, more
self-restrained and polite toward one another. One possible explanation for
this difference is that the symbolic meanings of the new food, along with
customers' willingness to accept the exotic culture associated with fast food,
has affected people's table manners in particular and social behavior in
general (3).
In the fourth week
of our discussion questions, we looked at an article written by Benjamin R.
Barber named “Jihad vs. McWorld”. The article essentially talks about how the
world is being separated through religious conflicts between countries,
otherwise known as a jihad, while being brought together simultaneously through a
cultivation of fast music, fast computers, and fast food, otherwise known as
the McWorld. Religious reasons, however, are not the only reasons why countries are falling apart. Barber cites many examples in his article of countries such as
India and Yugoslavia who for political reasons are struggling as well. The
main point in this article, which pertains to the globalization of fast food,
is the universalizing of markets that American fast food restaurants are
creating. Although the restaurants that I refer to in this paper do well at
adapting to their local markets, they still bring the consistency of food,
service, and their symbols wherever they go. The symbols of McDonald’s, for
example, would be Ronald McDonald, the golden arches, and the bright yellow and
red colors they use in every restaurant. People have been conditioned to
identify these symbols with McDonald’s and on an even larger scale, America.
One of the four imperatives which Barber mentions in his article is the
information-technology imperative. The ever-growing technology in today’s world
makes it easier for fast food restaurants, based out of the United States, to
keep track of their global ventures. Scientific progress embodies and depends
on open communication, a common discourse rooted in rationality, collaboration,
and an easy and regular flow and exchange of information (6). In this case, the
scientific progress would be the expansion of new stores, consumer based
research through the Internet, and the ability to run thousands of restaurants simultaneously from one location.
The
fast food industry is growing at an ever-increasing speed throughout the world.
The expansion of American fast food comes with much more than it appears the restaurants initially expected. The restaurants went into countries with the expectation
of just serving food to customers at a fast pace and low price. However, they
have slowly changed countries diets, social lives, and economic positions. The
restaurants create job opportunities for people while at the same time causing other local businesses to close. They have done a great job at adapting to
their local markets yet they remain the closest things to America that
many of their customers have experienced. For this reason, the impact that the
restaurants have on people goes far beyond the food being served. People go to
KFC, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut for the experience rather than the food. Young
children in East Asia have begun incorporating french fries into their diet,
which is very different from their typical diet of rice and vegetables. People
center their social lives around McDonald’s such as having birthday parties
there and even getting married. In January, McDonald's added wedding packages
to its Hong Kong menu. This is the only city in the world where McDonald’s offers
the service, prompted by frequent inquiries about fast food weddings from
customers in recent years (7). The
influence of soft power that fast food restaurants bring with them can be
noticed just by looking at the foreign populations that consume the food. The
information-technology imperative shows us that the universalizing of the fast
food markets around the world is growing. Fast food has become a staple in the
lives of people all across the world and the more that restaurants adapt to
their local markets the less cultural homogenization we will see.
References:
1. Duram, Leslie A. Encyclopedia of Organic,
Sustainable, and Local Food.:
Greenwood Publishing Group,
2010. Google eBooks. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1616_fastfood/page2.shtml
3. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/watson-arches.html
4. Crothers, Lane. Globalization & American Popular
Culture . Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2010. Print.
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5. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-26/mcdonald-s-no-match-for-kfc-in-china-where-colonel-sanders-rules-fast-food.html?cmpid=yhoo
6. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1992/03/jihad-vs-mcworld/3882/
7. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2055444,00.html#ixzz1GKWQhKBg
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