How did fast food become so successful?
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Sponsored by Chumpa Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Can I get a Twister wrap meal, please? Are you eating or taking away? Eating in, please. Welcome to the food chain from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia Paul, and this week I'm in one of the UK's 42,000 fast food restaurants. What sauce would you like?

As you can hear, I'm not really a big fast food eater. But around the world, millions of you love the food they serve.

Last year, you spent more than $900 billion on fast food. And here in the UK, we're the second biggest consumers after the USA. Usually a quick McDonald's, something like that. Is it a bit of a treat? It is, and it's no washing up. Which restaurant do you prefer? There's not a bad one here. They're all good. Convenient. We've been to the Pizzeria Hotel, and that was lovely. And we're not the only ones.

But there are countries where these big global food brands have failed and some where they haven't even started yet.

What I want to know is, how is it possible to visit two restaurants on opposite sides of the world and buy exactly the same product? I'm in a fast food restaurant in the small seaside town of Southport, where I live in the north of the UK. This is a KFC, but you'll know the names of the other big players. Burger King, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and even brands like Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A.

and of course the big one, McDonald's. It's the most valuable food company in the world and one of the most recognisable brands. This is Oxford Street in London, Britain's top place to go shopping and amidst all the smart stores, the newest sort of place to eat. First food centres like this are just starting to spring up on high streets... McDonald's came to the UK in the 1970s.

but it was the early 1980s when this BBC report was made that it really started to take off. I was a teenager then and I can still remember the excitement of visiting the first branch when it opened near where I lived at

At the time, it wasn't clear whether the UK would take to these new foods. In the burger boom, the gamble is that Britain will go for fast food in a big way, with its quick service, tasty meals, lack of fuss and clean, smart surroundings. However, while fast food was the latest thing in the UK, in the USA, it had been a firm favourite since the 1950s. MUSIC

What fast food did was essentially took diner food, which was popular, hamburgers, milkshakes, french fries, and it made it more affordable and a bit more democratic by essentially serving it to anyone who could pass through.

My name is Adam Chandler. I'm a journalist and author based in New York, and I am one of America's leading fast food experts. When researching for his book, Drive Through Dreams, Adam found that after the Second World War, society in America had changed. People had places to go and things to do.

You have this great building of roads, you have this economic boom, you have this baby boom. And basically, American car culture emerges after World War II in a way that creates this huge need for roadside convenience and fast food grows out of this need. What fast food offered was...

open to everyone. A lot of stuffier food culture in America that existed before World War II was inaccessible. And that goes from race down to economics. And it really was a revelation for people, especially coming out of the Great Depression, where dining out was something that was seen as a luxury. And it became a way for young families with new disposable incomes to

Right. Absolutely.

At the heart of the story of fast food is a very anyone can do this sense. A lot of the company founders didn't have a college degree, who didn't have a high school degree in a lot of instances, didn't come from money, were oftentimes just people who were ready to plug themselves into a system that would work for them. And it did. It made opportunity very, very easy in a time when

that was a new part of the American experience. So it was the American dream in a very small way that became the American dream in a very big way. And by the 1990s, the USA was exporting that dream across the globe. American products and American businesses were seen as something that connected communities around the world. And so you would see all these fast food chains setting up shop in new countries. And in a lot of instances, restaurants,

becoming signifiers of a global community in ways that you might not think of a fast food company as being a part of. Fast food has different social implications where it goes. In some places, fast food remains a roadside business.

convenience place that you just stop and grab food quickly and continue on your way as you do often in the United States or in the UK. But in other places, it's a date night place. It's a place for celebrations. It is a place for big communal gatherings. It has a certain element of respect and class in a way that I think a lot of communities tend not to look at it that way, especially in the United States. We obviously have like fresh deliveries coming. So like we have chicken on the bone coming. It's fresh.

Back in Southport, assistant manager Sammy is explaining how food gets to the customer. And we have like specific procedure for each product and then obviously it's cooked in the fryers. And this is one of the reasons why fast food brands have been able to spread so widely. The standardisation of the food they serve.

And they're able to do that because of the way they're structured, the franchise model. The global fast food market has a two-part model. My name's Professor Jay Zagorski, and I'm an economist at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. There's the parent company, and many of these parent companies have world-famous names. And then there's the franchisees.

The franchise are actually the owners of many of the locations where you stop in to get your fast food. And you've probably never heard of these franchise names because many of them are small. The parent company charges each franchisee a percentage of sales. It could be as low as about 8% or it could be as high as almost 13%. So we use 10% as sort of a rough middle number.

That means that for every $100 worth of sales, the parent company takes 10%. What's important here is it's sales, it's not profits. And is there a benefit for the franchisee in this market? The franchisee gets an international reputation and they also get a set of standardized products and procedures so people know exactly what they're going to get when they walk in the door.

And this boosts sales compared to local restaurants. It sounds like a symbiotic relationship, but can there be difficulties? There's many difficulties in this model. The parent company wants each restaurant to boost sales as much as possible because they get 10%. The franchise owners, however, want to maximize profits. And profits are not sales, but sales minus their costs.

So the parent company wants things like franchise restaurants to stay open at all hours of the day and night. And the franchise owner, they want to close shop early because they don't make a lot of sales at, say, one in the morning. And those sales might not even cover their costs. So there's an inherent tension because the master company wants to sell, sell, sell.

And the local franchise owner wants to make as much money as possible. And making as much money as possible means watching the costs, which the parent company doesn't really care about. And that's what happened to McDonald's in Iceland. So why are you here today? Eat McDonald's. Are you going to miss McDonald's? Yeah, very much. They set up in 1993, and there was an initial burst of interest

interest in particular because... This is Andy-Sophia Fontaine. She's the editor of Iceland Review, based in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. Even though at their peak they only opened three locations in Reykjavik. She's originally from the USA and actually once worked at McDonald's. But here in Iceland, she's watched their rise and fall. There's been a long-standing burger culture in Iceland. They have their own take on

on a hamburger wherein they'll use lettuce and raw cucumbers and a type of fry sauce that's called a sholpu bogari or shop burger

And that's been around for ages. Yeah, so McDonald's, they struggled to try to maintain a market. Lehman Brothers, America's fourth largest investment bank, goes bankrupt. Meltdown on the markets as Wall Street is left reeling from some of the... The final nail in the coffin was the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009. The Icelandic krona is a very small currency. It's not pegged to any other currency.

And so like the slightest ripple in the global financial world that might cause disturbances in the US dollar and the euro and the GBP as it did then, but it really hit Iceland hard. McDonald's has very exacting standards for their supply chain as well. Like they have McDonald's brand lettuce. Everything has these very exacting standards and all these things needed to be imported here in Iceland. And so,

With the rapid devaluation of the Ascended Corona against the standards of the McDonald's Corporation, it just wasn't economically feasible anymore. And they had to shutter their doors in 2009. And what happened to the restaurants that had been left? Well, the company that was maintaining this franchise, they instead turned these restaurants into what's now Metro restaurants.

which is a very faithful facsimile, only it sources local products. Like naturally, like names like Big Mac are trademarked. And so instead, like you'd sell a very similar burger, like Heim's Borghetti, which literally means world citizen, but Borghetti also means hamburger. So a little play on words there. Would you say that that replacement, well, two restaurants, has been a success in two restaurants?

It's not global domination. No, it's not. I mean, I suppose it depends how you measure success. They're able to keep the doors open and the lights on. They're able to employ people.

And so, yes, in that sense, they are successful. But there's a strange twist to this tale that involves the last burger sold by McDonald's in Iceland. One Icelander, Kjotir Smaurason, bought the very last burger and instead of eating it and being able to tell his grandkids, I ate the last McDonald's burger served in this country, he instead contacted a Danish scientist because he wanted the scientist to test whether

how long this food would last. The scientist expressed no interest in this. And so instead he donated this regular hamburger and small fries to a Snottra house, which is a guest house in Thickfabir in South Iceland. And he,

It's still under glass there to this day. And spookily enough, it does not look like it's aged a day. There's a live stream. You can watch it. Yeah. Not degrading, I guess, on the live stream, I understand. Yeah, this is the ultimate in slow TV, I suppose. This is The Food Chain from the BBC World Series.

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I'm Julia Paul and this week I'm looking at the success of fast food. And it has been successful, even in places you wouldn't think would embrace it.

Today, France, the home of haute cuisine and the Michelin star, is the third biggest consumer of fast food after the UK and the USA. People know me as the KFC super fan. Hi, I'm Jackie Tan. I'm a food content creator and also the founder of Chicken On. This is my story. This is Jackie Tan from Singapore.

He runs a home-cooked food delivery business, making dishes which are a fusion of Singaporean and Japanese food. But he's also a fast food superfan. So I happen to love to eat KFC. So far I've eaten KFC in my 25th country.

Yes, you heard correctly. Jackie has eaten the famous fried chicken in 25 different countries. He's such an expert now, he's compiled a league table. The first one is Mongolia. I queue up for almost an hour to get my two or three piece chicken. And everything is so perfect because the skin is crispy, the chicken is fresh and tender.

In my memory, it's still one of the best guests I ever had. But after my article came out over the world, some Mongolians actually said, no, this is no longer the best. So I might have to go back to Mongolia and try again. It's a long way to go though, yeah? Yeah. The second one so far is because of the view of Cape Town,

whereby you can see Table Mountain. So I was sitting there and on my left is Table Mountain. So the view is fantastic. And the chicken is good. It's crispy. Because I always eat chicken based on four things. The taste, definitely. The freshness of the chicken. The crispiness of the chicken and the aroma. My number three, Krakow.

in Poland and I tried. It's very nice. It's very tender. It gave me a strong impression such that I place it at my number three. But Jackie also has some bad memories. The worst one is at Barcelona. Barcelona? Yeah. Okay. Hard meat. It's like rubber. So that was my worst experience.

Even though some chicken are not the best, I still manage to eat. I have a philosophy of not wasting food. But that one is too unbearable. I have to waste that chicken. Tell me this. Your wife often travels with you. What does she think? She doesn't like it. Because we're supposed to travel to the country to eat the local food, the best restaurant there, and not fast food. We can have that in Singapore.

I would try to convince my wife that Cassie in this country is deeper, but that I can't treat. Sometimes I managed to convince her. Sometimes I can't convince her. So we had to miss the chance to hug. And did I hear you took her even on your honeymoon to a KFC? That was in Spain. Oh no, so you had the worst on your honeymoon. Yeah, that's why I always remember that. That's terrible.

And don't you ever want to try the local food in these countries? Yeah, definitely. I like to visit markets because that's where the soul of the food industry or the local food seeds are. So normally early morning I will go to see the market and eat the local food there. Do you have any concerns about the spread of this

this very homogenized food to all of these interesting countries. Does that worry you at all? I think my mind is more to try KFC, probably because I used to like

In Singapore now, how often would you eat KFC at home? But there are still some countries where not all of the fast food chains have managed to open.

Nigeria has a large and growing population, driving high demand for food products, especially in urban areas. My name is Sumininu Olani, popularly known as Chef T in Nigeria. I am the founder of Home of Tasty Meals Nigeria, Lagos.

The middle class and the increasing preference for convenience food have created a booming market for both traditional and fast food businesses.

In Nigeria, the takeaway food market is very crowded. Home of Tasty Meals is competing not only with street sellers, but also with global brands. Burger King, you know, their place in Nigeria now is a tight one because they are trying to learn how to incorporate Nigerian meals into their menu. The likes of Domino's Pizza...

having jollof fries on their menu because we Nigerians, no matter where we go to, we love our food. For you to take your children to one of these chains after church, is that a treat? Yes, it's a treat. That's when if I feel I'm tired and I don't want to make burger. Jumini Nu started her business from her apartment and has now expanded to a large commercial kitchen.

Her aim is to provide takeaway food quickly. But she's making high-quality, traditional Nigerian dishes for a family meal. We started in a one-room apartment. It started off as a passion. You know, I was working as a night to FIFA and I told myself one day, I want to stop doing this.

I want to start my own business. I want to recruit people. I want people to work for me and create my own form of employment. I saw there was a problem in the food sector when it comes to like eating fresh food.

So I saw the problem and I decided to key into it. I want to solve this problem. That was what I actually did. So what was important to you was the cooking and the food as well as the speed of delivery? Oh, yes. Would you ever have considered running...

That wouldn't have satisfied me because I know the kind of market audience I want. And also, the country I am, we love our food. These markets I want to set up, nobody has it yet.

But there are no McDonald's in Nigeria. How come? For an economist, we call this the infant industry argument. Professor Jay Zagorski again. There's all kinds of restrictions put up by countries to prevent multinational chains and multinational products from entering. They want to protect local businesses, protect local jobs.

And there's many different ways of doing infant industry protection. Sometimes you require companies to have local ownership. You don't let foreign companies come in completely and have a 100% ownership. Other examples is local sourcing. You have to use local products like local potatoes or local meat when you're selling.

But one of the big ways is that some companies can't buy land. So when it comes to expanding into new countries, what works for some chains doesn't for others. Some of the restaurants, they own the land and then rent it to the franchise owners. For example, McDonald's buys the land, builds the restaurant, and then finds franchisees that want to rent locations from McDonald's.

Other franchise locations, like KFC, allow you to go out and find the land, build the restaurant, and then say to KFC, we think this is going to be a great opportunity. There are a number of countries in the world that say, sorry.

You know, you're not allowed to buy land in our country. You can rent here, you can come visit here, but locals can buy land, foreigners can't buy land. So when we look at some of these places where some of these big chains aren't operating, we might think it's something to do with food not suiting the local diet, but actually it can be nothing to do with the food. No, I don't think it has anything to do with the food.

But despite their commercial success, global fast food chains have many critics. Back in Southport...

Not everyone's a fan. Quite often you're eating something that's lukewarm. It's not as tasty. And I'd just rather know a bit more about what I'm eating. Rubbish, absolutely rubbish. Children like it, don't they? But, you know, the chips are cold before you start eating. I'd majority save it for treats. I'm not a big fast food person. I just like making things at home. Over the decades, criticism to fast foods emerged in the United States, but particularly in places where

fast food has just started taking off. Journalist Adam Chandler again. One of the challenges that fast food really faces is an image problem that's come up in the last 20 or 30 years, in large part because people have really begun to examine how the food systems came about and where companies are getting their produce and where companies are getting their supplies from. In a lot of instances, those global chains are not ones that are small, efficient, or locally based. They are

set deals with suppliers that often don't serve the local interests of a community in the best way. And so fast food has rightly taken criticism for some of the impact on local economies and the environment as a result of that. And that scrutiny is only going to continue to grow the more that fast food comes under examination by public health advocates, by environmental activists, by politicians, and by community leaders.

It really does raise a lot of questions about whether this is good for the world and good for communities in which fast food is increasingly operating. Well, love it or loathe it, nearly all of us have eaten fast food at one time or another. So how long does it normally take from somebody ordering to getting their food?

two and a half minutes wow that's impressive do you like eating KFC yourself yeah to be honest I usually have us in the rice box they're like superb honestly loads of buttermilk on and the bean salsa yeah it's heavy

So you don't feel like you couldn't bear to eat it because you're working here all the time? I've worked here for like 13 years and I've pretty much since the rice box team ever when I started but since they've been out I've always loved them. All of this talk of food is making me really hungry and of course one of the main reasons many of us eat this type of takeaway is because it's, well, fast. When you're hungry there's nothing better than being given hot food almost immediately.

So I think it's time for me to take a break and have my lunch now. Brilliant. Lovely, that's great. Thanks very much. Cheers. Okay, so we're just bringing my food back over to the table. Smells very nice. I should have a chip, although they are hot actually. Yeah, they are hot. Wow. Oh, they're lovely though. Really spicy.

Here is my twister. It's like a wrap with chicken in it. Mmm. That's very tasty. Mmm, quite spicy. Well, I may not have a view of Table Mountain, but I am looking out at the coast at Southport and I'm going to enjoy my lunch.

What's your favourite fast food? Or do you prefer your country's own food? You can let us know by emailing thefoodchain at bbc.co.uk. From me and the rest of the team, Hannah Bewley, Rumela Dasgupta, Beatrice Pickup and Ruth Alexander, thanks for listening and join us again next week.

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