Red tiles, neon lights and yellow sign boards. Big juicy burgers and sweet milkshakes. An ice cream cone oozing deliciousness and sprinkled with a flavour like never before. A bad work day instantly made better with a Big Happy Meal or a craving satiated with a Maharaja Mac on a broke wallet. Today, all these things are widely synonymous with McDonald’s as a brand and while the food chain may have had a rocky start, it has an inspiring journey.

The beginning of McDonald’s

Raymond Kroc, a salesman with 34 years of experience to his name, saw how the McDonald brothers were changing the burger game one milkshake at a time. As a milkshake salesman, one of Ray’s routine involved visiting the people to whom he sold  Multi Mixers. When he met two of his biggest clients, Richard and Maurice McDonald, life as he knew it was never the same. Realising he had the opportunity of turning something as homely and delicious as a hamburger into a phenomenon, Ray knew he had to capitalize on the idea.

While most of Ray’s regular customers bought only one or two Multi Mixers at a time, the McDonald brothers bought 8! Why? To make 40 milkshakes at a time so they could give their customers a regular supply of milkshakes and burgers. Looking at people lining up in queues outside the golden arches way into the dusky evenings, Ray realised the McDonald brothers had a booming business on their hands. Watching the many workers in crisp white hats and ironed uniforms scurrying around and serving burgers and fries with perfect precision, Kroc  instantly saw why McDonald’s as a franchise was an idea into which he just had to tap.

By 1954, a 52 year old Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers embarked on the journey of shaping and revolutionizing the way the fast food industry in itself worked. Using consistency and discipline as the key ingredients, Ray created a recipe for success, the likes of which we haven’t seen replicated. The first McDonald’s restaurant Ray saw was like a perfectly tuned factory, with all the workers and chefs humming around in sync.

By investing all his savings and more money than he could put into the business, Kroc joined hands with the McDonald brothers and set about creating history. Despite the resistance he received from the brothers as well as the rest of his friends and family, Kroc started working at putting his  sales experience to good use! The brothers finally agreed to Ray’s deal. The brothers sold Ray the franchises for the low price of $ 950. In exchange, he would keep 1.4 % of all sales and give 0.5 % back to the brothers. With the existing franchisees only giving such a meager percentage of total sales, the corporate parent made very little money.

Picture credit: succeedfeed.com

The growth of McDonald’s as a business

Once the deal was struck and written in stone, Kroc set about working on how to turn this food chain into a brand. The first McDonald’s franchise opened in 1955 as an experimental model, just outside Chicago in Des Plaines, Illinois. Although this first store started churning out more than enough profit in the beginning, Ray knew that in order to start making an impact, he had to enforce more order than there already was. Everything in making and delivering burgers had a certain sense of science to it and using this formula, Kroc grew McDonald’s to  greater heights. However, the speed with which Kroc was growing was quite different from what the partners had agreed to when they signed the deal. Realising Kroc was changing the way the business was running, the McDonald brothers had no choice but to bow out and leave Ray alone.

Although the move came as a disruptive thought process for Kroc, the end goal was always in sight. With dedication and an eye on perfection, Kroc built his business up so much that by 1960, there were more than 200 stores across the Midwest, the  central parts of the United States. Squashing all his customers one delicious burger and tempting meal at a time, Kroc quite literally perfected the way the fast food industry worked not just in the United States, but all over the world as well!

Picture credit: newsweek.com

The largest food chain in the world

With all the different advertising and marketing tactics McDonald’s used, the brand started growing to phenomenal heights. By the year 1970, it was the single largest food chain in all of the United States. Picking up speed not just in the United States, McDonald’s as a brand first started spreading to Europe and then to other parts of the world.

While the taste of the food is the same in all the branches, the menu has been tweaked to suit the tastes of the people in places outside the United States. For example, in India, the menu reflects dishes which have been curated for the Indian palate and in Germany, McDonald’s started serving beer in the 1970s!

Picture credits: gonebrakscity.com

Today, with over 36,000 restaurants, McDonald’s  serves 69 billion orders on a regular basis. Easily one of the most popular food chains the world over, there is no meal that is a Happier Meal happier meal than a McDonald’s one!