Fast Food Nation

“On any given day in the United States about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food restaurant.”

One of the many statistics that Schlosser provides in the Introduction, this fact illustrates the significant impact fast food has on daily life in the United States. It also helps explain the enormous power of the fast food industry because a large segment of the population supports it with their regular purchases.

“Federal agencies created to protect workers and consumers too often behaved like branch offices of the companies that were supposed to be regulated.”

Schlosser implies here that government agencies that are tasked with protecting citizens have been captured and instead perform as protective shields for giant corporate interests, in this case the fast food industry. This statement sets the stage for his development of the theme of Corporate Profit Versus Social Responsibility.

“Southern California had recently given birth to an entirely new life-style—and a new way of eating. Both revolved around cars.”

Schlosser explores how the fast food industry sprung up around the growth of automobile ownership in the United States. While readers may not automatically make the connection between cars and fast food, Schlosser makes connections between historical events and tells a rich, complex story about the rise of fast food.

“America’s fast food chains were not launched by large corporations relying upon focus groups and market research. They were started by door-to-door salesmen, short-order cooks, orphans, and dropouts, by eternal optimists looking for a piece of the next big thing.”

Defending the origins of the fast food industry, and the people who were understandably excited by the possibilities, Schlosser sets up a contrast between how the industry began and what it has become.

“They perfected the art of selling things to children. And their success led many others to aim marketing efforts at kids, turning America’s youngest consumers into a demographic group that is now avidly studied, analyzed, and targeted by the world’s largest corporations.”

Schlosser is speaking of the Walt Disney corporation here; it was an early pioneer in targeting children with advertisements. McDonald’s leaned into this strategy, and it partly explains the tremendous growth the corporation experienced in its early years.

“Among other cultural innovations, Walt Disney pioneered the marketing strategy now known as ‘synergy.’”

McDonald’s made effective use of the “synergy” strategy, described by Schlosser as a mass-marketing strategy that seeks to sell a brand through a multimedia approach. By reaching out to consumers through many channels, McDonald’s raised its overall brand recognition increased its sales.

“Indeed, market research has found that children often recognize a brand logo before they can recognize their own name.”

One of the many eye-opening pieces of evidence supplied by Schlosser in the book, this quote shows just how successful and ubiquitous advertising to children is in American culture. It illustrates the natural evolution of unfettered marketing to children.

“Immense subdivisions with names like Sagewood, Summerfield, and Fairfax Ridge blanket the land, thousands upon thousands of nearly identical houses—the architectural equivalent of fast food.”

Schlosser describes the suburban sprawl around Colorado Springs at the time of the writing of this book. The connection of the subdivisions to the fast food industry highlights the effect that fast food’s success has had on other industries.

“No other industry in the United States has a workforce so dominated by adolescents. About two-thirds of the nation’s fast food workers are under the age of twenty.”

Schlosser provides data here that shows how fast food corporations manage to keep their labor costs low. Schlosser also implies that these labor practices are exploitative.

“The labor practices of the fast food industry have their origins in the assembly line systems adopted by American manufacturers in the early twentieth century.”

This is an important idea in the text. Following the mass-production model of the automobile industry enabled the fast food industry to become a dominant force in American consumer culture. The comparison invites readers to consider whether they want to eat food produced by the same methods used to make cars and other products, or whether food ought to be treated differently.

“Raising wages and making a real commitment to workers will do more to cut crime than investing in hidden cameras.”

In this chapter, Schlosser has been detailing rising rates of theft in the fast food industry. Like many solutions proposed by the industry, increasing surveillance does not get to the root of the problem. He notes that many of these crimes are committed by former employees who may have felt exploited.

“Postwar refrigerators came with freezer compartments, and J. R. Simplot thought about the foods that housewives might want to put in them. He assembled a team of chemists, led by Ray Dunlap, to develop a product that seemed to have enormous potential: the frozen french fry.”

The quote describes the birth of the french fry, which subsequently became an enormous seller for McDonald’s. As with many innovations described in the book, frozen french fries were developed with big profits in mind rather than better food for consumers.

“At the time, McDonald’s had about 725 restaurants in the United States. Within a decade, it had more than 3,000.”

The decade mentioned here is when Ray Kroc first brought Simplot’s french fries to McDonald’s. The explosive expansion of the company is due in large part to the popularity and low cost of the frozen french fry.

“The fast food companies purchase frozen fries for about 30 cents a pound, reheat them in oil, then sell them for about $6 a pound.”

Schlosser uses this information to support the claim that french fries are among the most profitable items that a fast food chain sells.

“Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at a fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer who grew the potatoes.”

Schlosser implicitly suggests that fast food chains use their economic power to exploit farmers. This is a common refrain throughout Part II of the book.

“If there weren’t potatoes bobbing and floating past, you might think the place was an oil refinery.”

Schlosser tours a potato processing factory. The comparison to an oil refinery helps highlight the industrialized nature of food production plants.

“The industrialization of cattle-raising and meatpacking over the past two decades has completely altered how beef is produced—and the towns that produce it.”

Schlosser examines how the fast food industry, because of its exponential growth, has not only changed how food is produced; it has also changed the places where it is produced. This is another example of the far reaching effects that fast food has had on American culture.

“During one eighteen-month period, more than five thousand different people were employed at the Greeley beef plant—an annual turnover rate of about 400 percent. The average worker quit or was fired every three months.”

This information highlights the similarities between the labor practices of fast food and the cattle industry. The plant mentioned in the quote is a slaughterhouse, and the company that owns it has borrowed from fast food labor practices that ensure wages stay low.

“At the dawn of the twenty-first century, amid an era of extraordinary technological advance, the most important tool in a modern slaughterhouse is a sharp knife.”

Schlosser tours a slaughterhouse, and Chapter 8 details some of the graphic sights and sounds of the tour. Amidst all of it, he notices that the job is still performed as it always has been. This is further evidence that the corporate structure of the meatpacking industry, always looking to keep costs down, places technological investment to help workers perform their jobs very low on the list of priorities.

“We are human beings, more than one person told me, but they treat us like animals.”

Schlosser interviews many slaughterhouse workers, and this is their point of view. The comparison to animals, given what these people do for a living, is loaded with innuendo. The workers feel they are of no more value to their employers than the animals they are killing and hacking apart at great speed all day long.

“The meatpacking system that arose to supply the nation’s fast food chains—an industry molded to serve their needs, to provide massive amounts of uniform ground beef so that all of McDonald’s hamburgers would taste the same—has proved to be an extremely efficient system for spreading disease.”

Schlosser makes an alarming claim here; however, it is based on the corporate preference for speed of production over safe and sanitary conditions at meatpacking plants.

“A single fast food hamburger now contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of different cattle.”

Since this is the case, it becomes very difficult to accurately measure the safety of hamburger meat that is sold to fast food chains. Also, not all cows are the same, and the meatpacking industry has been known to use older dairy cows that are prone to disease for the production of ground beef.

“In China, the proportion of overweight teenagers has roughly tripled in the past decade.”

This fact correlates with the growth of fast food chains in China. Schlosser is implying that fast food causes obesity, and the evidence from China is one piece of evidence that supports the conclusion.