An unreasonably fascinating speculation about the economics of McDonald's McRib sandwich:
Fast food involves both hideously violent economies of scale and sad, sad end users who volunteer to be taken advantage of. What makes the McRib different from this everyday horror is that a) McDonald’s is huge to the point that it’s more useful to think of it as a company trading in commodities than it is to think of it as a chain of restaurants b) it is made of pork, which makes it a unique product in the QSR world and c) it is only available sometimes, but refuses to go away entirely.
If you can demonstrate that McDonald’s only introduces the sandwich when pork prices are lower than usual, then you’re but a couple logical steps from concluding that McDonald’s is essentially exploiting a market imbalance between what normal food producers are willing to pay for hog meat at certain times of the year, and what Americans are willing to pay for it once it is processed, molded into illogically anatomical shapes, and slathered in HFCS-rich BBQ sauce.
The McRib was, at least in part, born out of the brute force that McDonald’s is capable of exerting on commodities markets.
I am now sold on this theory.
1 comment:
This story is revolting on all levels, from the meat product itself to the global socioeconomics. Quite true though: that's probably the most revolting part.
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