Mcdonalds

Due to the highly labor intensive task of preparing their own French fries, McDonald’s started buying frozen French fries from the J.R. Simplot company in 1953. Today Lamb Weston and McCain are the leading frozen French fries manufactures in this country with Simplot still in the game.   The big three companies have either eliminated or acquired their smaller rivals, all in the name of competing for fast food contracts. Frozen French fries has become a commodity that is produced in high volume with low profit margins, this causes contracts with fast food companies to come down to a difference of a few pennies. Thus lowering the wholesale cost to the fast food companies and makes their retail sales more profitable.   The average contract from one of the three potato companies sells the frozen fries for about thirty cents a pound, the restaurants then heat it in oil and sell it for about six dollars a pound. The cost for a Idaho farmer to grow an acre of potatoes is around $1500. Mean while of the average $1.50 spent on an order of French fries in a fast food restaurant, only 2 cents go to the farmer. McDonalds and their competitors have created a market that curtails to their every profit margin, eliminating the smaller farmers from the industry, and keeping the lucky farmers who are a part of the national companies in a continuous bind.
A survey of American schoolchildren found that ninety-six percent could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus. The impact of McDonald's on the nation's culture, economy and diet is hard to overstate. Its corporate symbol - the Golden Arches - is now more widely recognized than the Christian cross