In “Pricing French Fries: A Lesson in Economics” economist Shannon Brownlee argues that fast food joints encourages American people to fatten. No one ever knew that one day McDonald’s would be sued for making people fat. For instance, during the previous summer, Samuel Hirsh, a lawyer from New York filed quite a considerable number of lawsuits and other four fast food firms. The reason for the suit was the fact that these firms had failed to disclose the bad health effects of their food. Among the suits, was the one that involved a Bronx teenager who weighed approximately 400 pounds. Most restaurants and food packagers have helped provide the American society with roly poly shapes. Fast food companies have been able to come up with marketing strategies that make sense business wise, says Shannon.
Shannon states that there are strategies used in inducing the customers to overeat. Smart research strategy, introduced by Elliot Bloom, helped in figuring out that the fast food franchises attracted a specific group of individuals, mostly the young, and the single males. The persons ate in such joints to approximately twenty times within a month.
Shannon in his example states that due to due to the cheap food available at Taco Bell, there was a dramatic rise in the number of customers hence increase in revenues. Late in the 80s, most of the fast food companies were reducing their prices so as to induce more customers to eat in those joints. Next, Shannon claims that since the main reason as to why these firms were in operation was to make profits, they had to diversify on the types of foods so as to command the restaurant industry effectively. They landed on super sizing criteria. This is a situation where the portion sizes had increased in sizes. McDonalds announced its large sized fries as early as 1972. The company went ahead to release a 32-ounce super-size fries and soda. This implied that customers could get more food at a small increase in the price. For each dollar, a fast food franchiser spends to produce food items, approximately 20 cents went towards the food. The rest was swallowed in the expenses like packaging, salaries, insurance as well as electricity bills.
Shannon later mentions upsell which is a strategy that played an important role in fattening the American people. For instance, if an individual goes to buy a cheeseburger going at 3.74 dollars and the person serving suggests that one buys a super-size at 4.47 dollars. With this deal, most customers went for the super-size. This therefore results into the American population increasing in body as obesity steps in. Shannon further states that other firms such as Heineken, Frito Lay as well as Olive Garden decided to increase the size of their products since the bigger the product, the bigger the profits, as evidenced in the fast food industry.
Finally, Shannon argues that the restaurateurs and marketers have an option of scoffing the lawsuits against them. This is due to the fact that adults should be responsible with what they put in their mouth. The omnipresent nature of the fast food companies has proved to be expensive as well as self-cannibalizing. Ultimately, Shannon suggests that nutritional policy makers should intervene so as to help the American people slim in a healthy manner.
References
Smith, Andrew F.. Encyclopedia of junk food and fast food. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. Print.
