Flipping Burgers

Five days out of the week, I walk into work. I put on my employee shirt, my apron, my visor, and I get to work. I have the pleasure of making a ton of pizzas for 8 hours straight, no I am not necessarily ‘fond’ of it, but I do it because it gets me by and pays my bills. Sure I would love to be in some upscale restaurant, but I a least have a job, and I do not take it for granted. Many people would prefer to not have my job; it’s a minimum wage, fast pace, difficult customer environment. But it is an opportunity that is not beneath my dignity, so to that, I quote Charles J.

Sykes, in his article called ‘Life rules for Teenagers, “Flipping Burgers in not beneath your dignity”. I could not agree more with him. Millions of United States workers are employed at a fast food restaurant. Many Americans are probably working in two or more of them at one time, just to get by. They also realize that flipping burgers isn’t below their dignity, having no job and living off of others should be below ones dignity. Every day I see people on the streets, begging for money. Yes, everyone has their reasons, but everyone is capable or picking their selves up and applying for jobs.

You can always advance in the job you have, you gain experience, and once you have enough experience you can apply for higher jobs and get further up the chain. It just takes a bit of hard work in some low paying jobs. For many people, their first jobs are in a fast food place, and it is just a stepping stone. Many work their way through school and then once they graduate, they are able to find jobs in their degree. Others find that they love working in fast food and end up owning them or managing more than just one store.

A lot of fast food restaurants offer benefits and are always giving the opportunity for raises, only good things come from hard work. You never know where you will go when you first start a minimum wage job, but you know it will all be worth it in the end. You are getting yourself somewhere, and can be proud of that. One of my first jobs was working at a Quizno’s, there I also had to wear an apron and visor, I was 16 when I first got that job and might I say it was one of the easiest jobs I have ever had.

Back when I did not have any responsibilities and whatever money I earned, I just got to pocket it. All I had to do every day, was make sandwiches and run register. Half way through my shift I always got a free sandwich and at the end of the day we always got to take home cookies or left over bread. How could anyone take that for granted? I did. I hated working there, thought it was so hard and embarrassing making sandwiches for other people, but now I realize how crazy I was for thinking that way.

The other day I was talking with some friends and telling them about the paper I had to write. I told them the rule I chose, and one of them piped up saying “it is definitely below my dignity! ”; She lives at home with her parents, pays no bills, and doesn’t work. She is naive and obviously doesn’t have a clue of what it means to have an opportunity. There are so many other people who also think that way. They also do not appreciate what is just kind fully handed to them. Others work so hard to just have half of what they have.

I wish there was a way to imprint into every ones minds, to appreciate what they have. So tomorrow, I shall go into work and put on my uniform and work hard, because I personally know that making pizzas is not all that I have in store for my life, I am working and paying my way through school and although I dread heading to work every day I know that I am helping my future and preparing myself for other difficult, low paying jobs further in life. No one should ever take a job for granted or be embarrassed for what they do; they should always look at it as an opportunity.

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Five Forces About Fast Food Chains

TETA? 2607Exercise2 PartI:briefintroductionoffastfoodrestaurants The industry I selected is fast food restaurants which are also named as quick service restaurants. As a special type of restaurant, fast food restaurant is characterized both by its fast food cuisine and by its self table service. The majority of fast food restaurants are part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation so that each branch could be provisioned by standardized ingredients and controlled by unified management. Within this industry, several leaders should be identified.

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s Corporation is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, daily serving around 68 million customers in 119 countries. (mcdonalds. com & burgerbusiness. com) In the year of 2011, the net income has reached 27 billion USD with net profit of 5. 5 billion USD. In the recent five years, McDonald’s revenue kept increasing and the average increase rate was 3. 1 %. ( McDonald’s annual report,2011). Subway which is owned and operated by Doctor’s Associate is an American restaurant franchise which mainly sells sandwiches and salads.

Subway, as the largest single-brand restaurant chain globally, keeps the fastest growing franchises in the world with 37000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. (subway. com) KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is the world’s largest chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants. It is also the second largest restaurant chain after McDonald’s, with over 17,000 outlets in 105 countries. (KFC. com) PartII:IndustryanalysisbyFiveForces In 1979, Michael Porter published “How Competitive Force Shapes Strategy” in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) which started a revolution in the strategic field.

He proposed five competitive forces which could to great extent determine the profitability of an industry and strategy’s formulation. In this part, Five Forces will be utilized to analyze the fast food restaurant industry. [Typetext] Page1 TETA? 2607Exercise2 Threat of Suppliers The suppliers of fast food restaurant mostly are meat producer, vegetable retailers, beverage companies and bakeries food retailers. As meat and vegetable are hard to differentiated, it is difficult for such a supplier to stand out.

Also, most of these suppliers are local and small-sized while the quick service restaurants are international and giant; hence, it is easy for the fast food chain to be the dominant player. As for the fast food restaurants, in general, the switching costs are not high if they want to change their supplier of meat and vegetables. However, some supplier brands are quite powerful such as beverage company—Coca cola because their product is unique in the market. It is also possible for a supplier to be integrated forward such like building up corporation relationship with fast food restaurant to enlarge their supply power.

To sum up, the supplier power in the fast food restaurant is low relatively especially among non-differentiated good suppliers. Threat of Buyers There are many small operators in the fast food restaurant industry which means buyers have many alternatives to choose the most suitable quick service restaurant. Meanwhile, there is almost no switching cost for customers to change their tastes. Additionally, the buying information is also abundant and available for the customers to select the most satisfactory restaurant. It seems that buyer power in the fast food restaurant is relatively high.

However, the volume of each customer generally is not extremely important to overall sales of the companies and hence, each individual customer may not be valued much by the company. That diminishes the power of the buyer to some extent. Also, there is no threat of backward integration which means it is almost impossible for customers to build up cooperative relationship with fast food chains. Hence, buyer power would lowered by lack of possibilities of integration. The concentration of buyers is low which also reduce the power of buyer.

As for the fast food chain, the brand identity also helps them to decrease the threats from customers. To sum up, the threat from buyer is at the moderate level according to the above [Typetext]   Page2 TETA? 2607Exercise2 analysis. Threat of new entrants As the threat from new entrants, the first thing to consider is cost. Obviously, the entrance costs are relatively low when compared to other industries such like mobile phone manufacturing and information technology industry. However, the cost of brand building also plays an important role as brand identity is perceived as a significant factor of fast food restaurant’s strategy.

In the fast food industry, the existing brands are already powerful like McDonald’s and Burger Kings so it will take time and expenditure for a fast food store to stand out. All in all, the cost of new entrants is not as low as what we assume previously. Secondly, the access to supply channels is quite easy because those raw materials for the fast food restaurant are available normal goods. However, there may exist exclusive contracts with suppliers so that it may make hard for new companies to enter this industry. Thirdly, another barrier to enter fast food industry is the access of distribution.

Fast food chain always signed exclusive contracts with the college, supermarket, fuel stations and others and hence, it is much difficult for a new entrant to build its own distribution channels. The economies of scale and the access of distribution are major barriers that firms face in this industry. Additionally, it is also difficult to differentiate your product in this industry because the product is fairly similar when we divided fast food into different categories (hamburgers, sandwiches, pizzas). To sum up, the threat of new entrants is moderate as we have to consider from all aspects. Threat of substitutes

Although the switching costs of customers are quite low, the threat from substitutes is still at low level. The main substitutes of fast food restaurant are pre-cooked food, mid-range restaurants or supermarket products. However, eating in a normal restaurant is much more expensive and time consuming. Pre-cooked food is cheap while the facilities to warm it up may not be available. Hence, fast food still held [Typetext]   Page3 TETA? 2607Exercise2 advantages no matter from the price or comfort level. Threat of rivalry The number of competitive rivals with similar products and service for the same customer group is high.

As mentioned before, the initial expenditure to set up a fast food restaurant is not quite so high and hence, many small scale quick service restaurants may try to enter it. Also, there are no high exit barriers because it is easy to close restaurants as the relatively low fixed costs. Meanwhile, the market growth is limited because the market gets saturated with a certain amount of restaurants, fast food shop or delivery services. It seems that the threat of rivalry is relatively high in the fast food restaurant industry. All the above analysis is summarized in the following diagram. Figure 1) Figure 1 PartIII:Additionaldiscussionaboutcompetitivecondition Apart from the five forces that I have mentioned before, there are still some other [Typetext]   Page4 TETA? 2607Exercise2 forces which also affect competitive condition. In the first place, culture plays a more important part in deciding people’s food consumption than before. According to Maddock’s (2004) research, there is a correlational relationship between the number of residents per fast food restaurant and the square miles per fast food restaurants with state-level obesity prevalence.

This result indicates that fast food restaurants do make a significant contribution to the people’s obesity level. The problem of obesity has already raised public’s attention and people concern more about the nutrition of the food rather than price and convenience. In addition, people also realize that fast food restaurant also to a great extent contribute to the problem of childhood obesity. Another research (Harris, Schwartz &Brownell, 2010) also reveals that Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 purchase 800 to 1,200 calories in an average fast food meal, including 30% or more of calories from sugar and saturated fat.

As the obesity would threaten human’s health, more and more experts suggest that people especially children should eat fast food as little as possible. Hence, there is an overall trend that the consumer group of fast food is squeezing. As the market is declining, each company within this industry has to compete harder to win more consumers. In this way, external factors like culture, healthy reports also play an important force to decide the competition level of this industry. Another limitation of five force framework is that some companies in the same industry are cooperators unlike the original assumption that there are all competitors.

For example, KFC, pizza hut and Taco Bell are operated by the same corporation—Yum!. If they are not pure competitors in the market, they increase the entry barrier through reallocating their resource and supply and distribution channels. For example, these three restaurants could share the same logistic center to enhance the efficiency of company and save the cost as well. This kind of corporation within the same industry was ignored by classic Five Force Analysis which emphasis the pure competition relationship between companies. PartIVConclusion [Typetext]   Page5 TETA? 2607Exercise2

Let take McDonald’s as an example to analysis the whole industry. Although there is tense competition in this industry that many small fast food businesses fight with each other to improve their customer base, McDonald’s still held the absolute advantage in its customer scale. Just like the above analysis, the enter barrier of this industry is not so high. But McDonald’s own strong brand identity and established network and hence, the new small entrants could not threaten to McDonald’s. The buyers still hold power to some extent as the switching cost is low and the buying information is abundant.

However, McDonald’s still have an advantage in location and convenience. As McDonald’s has already established the strong network with suppliers, (e. g. cooperated with Coca-Cola), the threats from suppliers are not so intense. Under the current trend, the down-sizing of customer group is the major problem that McDonald’s has to face. McDonald’s have already implemented some strategies such like launching non-fried product and enclosed the detailed nutrition information of the food. After five forces analysis, McDonald’s still should be favorable in the next several years.

However, if a new small business plan to enter this industry, it will face a large number of challenges such like establishing supply channels and distribution channels and building its own brand identity. All in all, fast food restaurant is still saturated and unfavorable for business which wants to entry. Reference: Harris, J. L. , Schwartz, M. B. & Brownell,K. D. (2010), Evaluating Fast Food Nutrition and Marketing to Youth. Fastfoodmarketing. org Maddock, J. 2004. The Relationship Between Obesity and the Prevalence of Fast Food Restaurants: State-Level Analysis. American Journal of Health Promotion: November/December 2004, Vol. 19, No. , pp. 137-143. [Typetext]   Page6 TETA? 2607Exercise2 Porter,M. E. 1978. How competitive forces shape strategy. Harvard Business Review Strategy: http://polisci2. ucsd. edu/snunnari/HBR_on_Strategy_23_41. pdf#page=25 McDonald’s official website: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/home. html Burgerbusiness. com:http://www. burgerbusiness. com/? p=9168 McDonald’s 2011 annual report: http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/content/dam/AboutMcDonalds/Investors/Investors %202012/2011%20Annual%20Report%20Final. pdf Subway official website: http://www. subway. com/subwayroot/default. aspx KFC’s official website: http://www. kfc. com/ [Typetext] Page7

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Strengths Paper

“ A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better. ”~ Jim Rohn Throughout history, people have needed leaders to help them handle certain situations and work through problems. Anybody can become a leader, but first they must determine what their strengths are. There is now a test that one can take online that outlines their five top strengths and explains in detail what each one means. It varies for each person that takes it, but my top five strengths are achiever, adaptability, strategic, restorative, and relator.

The first of my strengths is achiever. This means that whenever I start something, I like to finish it and generally do whatever it takes to reach that goal. My second strength, adaptability, in a way, ties into the first one. Adaptability means being able to approach problems from different angles and finding new ways to complete things when one idea doesn’t work. I feel like these two strengths relate to me pretty well. I do not like to leave projects open ended whenever I start them and I’m usually pretty good at ‘rolling with the punches. These two allow me to tackle situations in a variety of ways and leave me with plenty of the proverbial “plan B’s” in case any of the first attempts do not work properly. My third strength, strategic, also aids my ability to work through problems. This particular strength allows me to think about the situation fully before jumping into it. Once I figure out what’s happening, I can come up with a plan that best suites the circumstances and work on accomplishing it. By nature, I have found out that I more of a planner.

I like to lay things out in my head before I start so things run more smoothly once I begin, which works well with my strategic strength. The last two strengths, restorative and relator, confused me for a little bit. I can put myself into other people’s shoes easily and I would much rather mend my broken relationships than burn those bridges, but I wouldn’t necessarily put them into my top five. It’s not a bad thing by any means, though! As a whole, these five strengths work well together nicely and, in a certain situation, could play off of each other in a very effective way!

For example, let’s say that I worked at a burger joint downtown. Well, everyone gets hungry and the need to eat usually overwhelms any other feeling that one could have. So, here’s the scene: it’s a hot summer day and after classes, I decide that I’m going to go get some free food at the restaurant that I work at. Walking in, I know what I want to achieve: I want a big, juicy burger with mustard, ketchup, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and cheese with a side of fresh onion rings. I grill the burger, pull out the buns, and head to the fridge to grab all the condiments.

I generally only like to make one trip, so I carry all the items to the table where my burger is waiting. Little did I know that someone had spilled Coke earlier in the day! As I slip on the spill, the pickles and ketchup fall to the tile in the kitchen and shatter. I have to adapt to the new situation, so I come up with a new strategy. Banana peppers and a little bit of mayo would fill in for the dropped items nicely! I bring all the items over to the table and restore what could have been a disaster.

I can now take my delicious lunch outside, find someone that I can relate to, and have a conversation over fresh burgers and crispy onion rings. Everybody has the potential to be a leader. Before they assume this responsibility though, it is best that they find out what their top strengths are so that they can benefit a larger amount of people more effectively through their actions. For me, my top strengths are achiever, adaptability, strategic, restorative, and relator. With these, I can figure out problems, find out ways to solve them, get others input on the subject, and come out of the situation intact.

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Meal Plan Cost Analysis

My meal plan is a bit unusual in that I am temporarily living with family after experiencing a broken relationship and selling my condo. I am not required or expected to contribute to the food costs of the household. However, I do pick up items from the grocery store on occasion and I go out to dinner with friends. My school schedule is such that I usually eat my meals before and after classes and do not eat at the offerings on campus. I rarely eat fast food or get food from vending machines. During my 7 day food log time frame I spent 42. 93 eating out and around 48. 2 at the grocery. My guilty pleasure is Agave. It is rather expensive but I prefer to use it in my coffee or tea instead of sugar. It has a lower glycemic index and is sweeter than sugar. I prefer the taste. I do like to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. I prefer to buy what is in the season as it tastes better and is usually priced better. In my past experience, it is better to plan your meals around what is in season and on sale that to plan your meals and hope for the best in prices and availability. When eating out, I tend to choose what I want instead of what is healthiest. Eating out is a social event for me.

I like to relax and enjoy myself which, for me, does not include analyzing food choices. Because I am frugal (or just plain cheap) I rarely order drinks when out. I cannot justify spending 2. 95 for a glass of iced tea or 7. 50 for a glass of wine when I can get the whole bottle for 6. 99. One thing that I could do to improve my eating out habits that would be both healthier and more cost-effective is to ask the server to box up half of the meal. Restaurant portions are much larger than we should be consuming. This would prevent me from overeating and provided me with another meal for the next day. Overall I am a good shopper. I purchase seasonal food to take advantage of better pricing and quality. I shop strictly from a list so I do not overbuy. I prepare my list from planned menus and advertised sales. I use coupons to purchase only those items I would normally purchase rather than purchasing an item because I have a coupon. I could improve upon my eating out habits by making healthier choices and eating less. The real benefit of my current meal plan is that my sister is a very good cook and usually prepares dinner every night and she usually makes healthy meals.

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Home Cooked vs. Fast Food

Benjamin Blackburn Blackburn1 Professor Barnes English 111-16 11/19/2012 Home cooked: Health over Value Instead of putting money towards car or house payments, several thousands of dollars are spent on food purchased away from home in the average American family. The numbers are even more increasing to single status Americans. Don’t get me wrong, I like fast food, but it doesn’t come close to a home cooked meal.

Home cooked meals are comfort foods that help a family bond. Whether it is a recipe passed down for generations, or culinary discovery made inventive genius, nothing beats a good home cooked meal with family. The main temptation to indulge in fast food is its convenience, especially during a busy work day or long road trips. With less prepare time, fast food chooses frozen foods that are shipped to location. Although there are food chains who advertise “fresh, never frozen”, these companies are not purchasing these “fresh” products from a local, reputable supplier.

Adding to fast foods convenience, these chains have to take short cuts to deliver hot food, fast! Home cooked meals may not have a convenient drive-thru, but prepping fresh meats and vegetables the night before can alleviate long prep and cooking times. We all know that fast food sales for a reasonable price. Even when there is an increase in economy, they tend to remain at those prices in order to entice the customer. When some time Blackburn 2 passes, and things seem normal in economy, then they will increase prices slightly.

It is my belief that fast food wants Americans to know they are suffering with them, therefore winning the people’s choice. Happy customers make for good business, with fewer complaints. Although home cooked meals seem much more expensive than McDonalds, health plays a bigger part. Having and growing a personal garden can cut these prices down to fractions that not even fast food can compare to, not to mention more nutritious. Belief in the value for a buck is not reason enough to set aside nutritional values.

Most families put their trust in Betty Crocker and Stouffers from local grocery stores. These “convenience foods” are cheap alternatives to fast food but contain as much sugar, sodium, and saturated fat as eating out. Using fresh ingredients, you are more able to control the amount of harmful ingredients used in cooking. As a matter of opinion, you know what is being put in your meals. When looking at fast food from a health stand point, salads from McDonalds contain as many calories as their best-selling Big Mac when you add salad dressing.

Although fast food offers health alternatives, they are not all as healthy as they seem. With America’s increase of obesity each year, home cooking is more nutritious and clean. Plus, the fact that you are able to spend quality time with family and friends. Coming from a single parent home, I was able to do homework at the kitchen table and as my mother helped me, she would also keep a close eye on the stove while preparing meals for me and my sister. Cooking is bonding time!

Eating out felt like vacations when I was growing up. It was a reward for a tough week at school. We as Americans have become lazy, and are taking the easy way out far too often. Packing a healthy snack consisting of fruits and sandwiches made at home can Blackburn 3 prevent the craving for fast food while on a road trip. The same can also be applied to working lives. Home cooked meals are not just the healthy choice, they are the better choice.

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Launching Indian Fast Food in Bulgaria

The country I would choose to launch the Indian Fast Food would be Bulgaria. In order to evaluate the marketing strategy we have to make research and to discover the differences between the Bulgarian and the UK market 1. Fast food in Bulgaria There is a little amount of information regarding the fast food market […]

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How Fast Food Affects Child Obesity

Obesity has become and increasing problem in the United States for the past few years. Not only has it affected adults but now children at an alarming rate. Fast food is the cause of a lot of overweight children and needs to be addressed immediately. According to CBS news, billions of dollars each year are […]

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