How long it would take to burn off a Big Mac – and 19 other McDonald’s facts
Fast food fans can taste victory as McDonald’s golden arches enter England’s smallest historic county for the first time.
The new branch for the chain, which feeds about 3.4 million Brits a day, completes the giant’s UK takeover.
This week councillors unanimously approved a 24/7 drive-through for Oakham, Rutland.
It came despite 50 letters of objection to the plan in the pretty East Midlands county, home to 40,000 people.
McDonald’s first UK branch opened in London in 1974 and it now has nearly 1,300 branches in Britain.
Few firms have had such a global impact as McDonald’s. It has even infiltrated economics jargon, with the Big Mac Index a measure of currencies’ purchasing power.
Impressive for a company which started as a hot dog stand in California in the late 30s run by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald.
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In 1940 they opened a drive-in barbecue restaurant which became a burger joint in 1948.
A lot has changed since then but, despite coming under fire in discussions on childhood obesity, its popularity barely wanes.
Here are 20 juicy nuggets about McDonald’s
1. A branch 80 miles from London is part of The Queen’s £13billion property empire.
2. McDonald’s UK head office in Finchley was opened in 1983 by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She described the Big Mac as “absolutely enormous” and wondered how anyone could hold one in their hand.
3. McDonald’s originally wanted a West End location for its first branch to target American tourists but could not get a suitable site.
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4. The first branch was in an old Burton menswear shop in Woolwich, South London. Its busy high street was considered to represent “average Britain”.
5. McDonald’s is the world’s biggest fast food chain but in the UK there are 1,671 Greggs compared with 1,249 Mcdonald’s restaurants.
6. A Big Mac in 1974 was 43p, the equivalent of £3.91 today – more than its actual price of £2.89.
7. Despite selling fast food, it has been official community partner of the four UK Football Associations since 2002. In that time they have created more than 20,000 new football coaches’ posts across 6,000 clubs.
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8. McDonald's sources 55 per cent of its ingredients from 17,500 British and Irish farms.
9. In 2008 McDonald’s employees’ uniforms were designed by Bruce Oldfield, a designer favoured by Princess Diana.
10. McJob is in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a low paying job with few prospects”.
11. McDonald’s has its own version of The X Factor called the Voice of McDonald’s, to show the vocal talent of its 1.8 million employees around the globe.
12. McDonald’s estimates 400,000 cattle are slaughtered in the UK every year to provide beef for its products, equal to 46 animals every hour.
13. Around 3.4 million Brits eat McDonald’s every day.
14. A person would need to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a large coke, fries, and Big Mac.
15. A common additive in McDonald’s is calcium silicate, a white powder used to prevent bricks, roof tiles and cement from caking.
16. Some of McDonald’s salads are more calorific than its burgers.
17. The first McDonald’s UK ad was in cinemas in 1975 and on local television a year later.
18. McDonald’s UK’s 146 restaurants had a turnover of £100million in 1984.
19. Fears over mad cow disease caused McDonald’s beef sales to drop by 50 per cent and in March 1996 they temporarily stopped selling food made with British beef.
20. Profits at the UK arm of McDonald’s reached £341million in 2017.
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