Word: kroc
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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JACQUES PEPIN has more than enough credentials to assess the role of Ray Kroc and McDonald's. But he turned out to be a better choice than we initially thought. Not only is Pepin a great chef, food writer and TV host on PBS (Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: Cooking with Claudine), but early in his career he learned about American cuisine by working for Howard Johnson's, thus becoming a veteran of the fast-food wars...
...standardized designs, mass-marketed through new forms of mass media and spewed forth in cookie-cutter form from big factories and studios. This included not only consumer goods like Ford's cars, but everything from William Levitt's suburban homes to David Sarnoff's nationally broadcast shows to Ray Kroc's Big Macs. Mass production made all sorts of stuff, from toothpaste to TVs, more affordable, but it also led to a certain conformity. And because of economies of scale, it had a centralizing effect: power shifted from local craftsmen, shopkeepers and family-run businesses to big factories, chains...
Almost half a century before Ray Kroc sold a single McDonald's hamburger, Ford invented the dealer-franchise system to sell and service cars. In the same way that all politics is local, he knew that business had to be local. Ford's "road men" became a familiar part of the American landscape. By 1912 there were 7,000 Ford dealers across the country...
...Howard Johnson Co. went to pieces, Ray Kroc's obsession with Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value--the unwavering mission of McDonald's--was gathering momentum. Kroc was adroit and perceptive in identifying popular trends. He sensed that America was a nation of people who ate out, as opposed to the Old World tradition of eating at home. Yet he also knew that people here wanted something different. Instead of a structured, ritualistic restaurant with codes and routine, he gave them a simple, casual and identifiable restaurant with friendly service, low prices, no waiting and no reservations. The system eulogized...
...brothers created the first self-service drive-through, offering speedy service and low prices. As the franchise expanded, Maurice handled operations while Richard focused on marketing, designing the now ubiquitous Golden Arches and the "millions served" placards. In 1961 the brothers sold the business for $2.7 million to Ray Kroc, once their milk-shake mixer salesman...