Journalist Gary He has authored McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches, a huge, gorgeous book about the amazing array of different forms and menus of McDonald's restaurants around the world.
If there's one thing McDonald's is known for among its American customers, it's its uniformity. Almost all McDonald's from Maine to California look the same and have the same offerings. And when McDonald's began to open restaurants outside the States over the course of the later 20th century, the standard menu of the United States McDonald's held an exotic appeal for non-Americans. McDonald's was exporting America.
When the first McDonald's opened in Japan, there were long lines just to experience the standard American menu. But that couldn't last.
"Chains like McDonald's have excelled at standardization, leveraging economies of scale and the reliability of a consistent product to expand into market after market around the world. But that strategy will only get them so far: by the late 1980s, analysts at McDonald's Japan determined that 40 percent of the market remained uncaptured, even over a decade after the brand had first arrived. Without all the hype, something had to change to win over those remaining customers and reverse declining sales. The solution was a localized menu item.
"Localization, in contrast to standardization, is the act of customizing products to suit the needs of specific markets. For McDonald's it means changes in ingredients like using halal meat or eliminating all pork for Muslim-majority countries, or different seasoning levels for the Spicy Chicken McNuggets. It can also mean a completely novel item: the Teriyaki McBurger, featuring a pork patty slathered in the eponymous sauce, was launched in the Japanese market in 1989."
Now with over 40,000 restaurants across the planet, the McDonald's of each country can look and taste as different as the cultures in which they are embedded.
He has created this book to show these differences, and it is a huge, beautiful book filled with photographs of the various restaurants and foods they offer. The book is even designed to reflect the look of a Big Mac, with the edges of the pages colored to match its various ingredients. The cover is textured to evoke the feel of sesame seeds.
In Hong Kong, McDonald's offers various Macaroni Soups, an iconic item traditionally offered in "cha chaan teng" cafés that emerged during the British colonial period.
The McDonald's on the Avenue des Champs-Élysees in Paris, France is one of the chain's most popular restaurants in the world. And French McDonald's will often offer the McBaguette, featuring "two beef patties, lettuce, Emmental cheese, and mustard."
In the Philippines, McDonald's was compelled to introduce McSpaghetti in order to compete with Jolly Spaghetti, a popular dish at local chain Jollibee's that predated McDonald's arrival.
He not only documents the menu items from faraway McDonald's, his book also features beautiful photographs of the unusual architecture of non-U.S. (and even some U.S.) McDonald's.
The book is a fascinating and visually stunning case study in corporate globalization. He in no way glorifies or extolls the phenomenon, but rather takes an anthropological approach in his exploration of how McDonald's has successfully exported its culinary (if you can call it that) and corporate culture to every corner of the globe.
Link to purchase McAtlas here.
