McDonalds Stock Slides as more consumers turn to food
http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/mcdonalds_stock_slides.html
OAK BROOK, IL‹The McDonald's Corporation announced Tuesday that it will
close 175 restaurants and cut nearly 600 corporate jobs, responding to a
plunge in stock prices blamed on a depressed economy and rising consumer
interest in actual food.
"Though still America's number-one hamburger retailer," McDonald's CEO Jim
Cantalupo said, "we have entered a brief period of restructuring due to the
steady growth of other convenience eateries and, more significantly, growing
competition from producers and distributors of demonstrably nutritive
matter, i.e. food."
In the fourth quarter of 2002, McDonald's posted the first quarterly loss in
its 47-year history. Its stock closed Tuesday at $15.78, a seven-year low
for the quasi-food giant.
Analysts attribute the bleak financial picture to numerous factors,
including the uncertain economy, poor management, eroding market share, and
widespread health concerns about beef‹a component sometimes used in the
construction of McDonald's hamburger patties.
"Though well-accustomed to weathering recessions and changing tastes, the
Golden Arches may be facing its toughest battle ever, given the surging
public interest in leading healthy, active lives and consuming objects that
taste at least remotely organic," analyst Carolyn Moss of Lehman Brothers
said. "These days, people seem more interested in eating food than
hormone-hybrid lab patties."
Above: A tray of McDonald's semi-synthetic digestibles.
The world's leading purveyor of semi-synthetic digestibles, McDonald's
became a franchise in 1955 and quickly expanded across the U.S., thanks to
innovative marketing, low prices, and exemption from FDA regulations, given
that its products fall outside the scope of the agency. McDonald's has
proven a popular favorite among busy, on-the-go Americans lacking the time
for genuine food.
But for all its financial woes, McDonald's is optimistic for the future.
"This whole non-reconstituted-food craze will pass," Cantalupo said. "People
have enjoyed our meat-flavored pseudo-patties for decades, and we're not
going to be scared by consumers' passing interest in burgers that actually
taste like an animal, served on bread that's less than a week old and
garnished with ve-ge... ve-ge... ve-ge-tables."
Said McDonald's COO Charlie Bell: "We don't see the burgeoning food industry
as a threat, but rather as a public fancy with which McDonald's can happily
co-exist."
Added Bell: "I even enjoy some food myself here and there. I ate some corn
just last weekend."
In spite of McDonald's outward optimism, rumors abound that the company is
pondering some of its most extreme changes ever. McDonald's famed
management-training facility, Oak Brook's Hamburger University, is
reportedly developing an unprecedented "food studies" program. The facility
is also rumored to be adding a research wing to teach culinary fundamentals
for eventual incorporation into the McDonald's business plan.
"The bottom line is, we're doing fine," Bell said. "Certainly, as a last
resort, we could introduce some recognizably food-like items, perhaps a
sandwich made with animal matter and vegetables that have not been shredded,
condensed, and flash-frozen to remove all possible nutritional content or
general appearance of earthly origin. But I honestly don't think it will
ever come to that."
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