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How Chicken Nuggets Took Over The World

9:00 am in Daily Bulletin

Half a century ago chicken came on the bone and resembled a bird. Today the era of on the bone chicken appears to be coming to an end, giving way to boneless chicken:

  • Up until the 1970s fast food chains didn’t have product offerings beyond burgers and fries. However federal guidelines around the 70s began to discourage Americans from eating red meat.
  • Moreover the price of beef began to rise, causing fast food chains to desperately search around for alternatives.
  • Chicken was an attractive option since it was cheap and thought to be healthier than beef.
  • McDonald’s led the charge trying out chicken pot-pies and bone-in fried chicken. Only deep fried boneless chicken chunks resonated with customers.
  • Now boneless chicken has become so common that one KFC executive jokes that young people today no longer know that chicken has bones in it.
  • Most chains from Chik-Fil-A to Burger King have abandoned on the bone chicken. KFC was the last holdout and it too recently announced plans to introduce boneless chicken menu offerings.

Read more about the history of chicken nuggets, what Colonel Sanders would have thought, and the problem with chicken margins over here.

Source: Time

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Taking The Chicken Out Of KFC

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin

KFC’s plans to expand into African countries are facing one big hurdle: chickens. Drew Hinshaw writes:

  • Chicken farmers in Ghana don’t meet KFC’s professional standards and so chains are forced to import their chicken from other countries.
  • However Ghana’s currency is depreciating which makes imports more expensive, menu prices higher, and sales lower.
  • To cut costs KFCs in Ghana are encouraging patrons to use shito – a local hot sauce – instead of more expensive imported ketchup.
  • Nigeria doesn’t allow the import of chickens. This has driven Nigerian KFCs to add fish to the menu.
  • Kenya doesn’t allow chicken imports either. There is just one local supplier who meets the chain’s professional standards and they charge a large premium for it.

To read more about the struggles for KFC and what chain owners have to say about it, as well as why developing a professional domestic chicken industry will be difficult for African countries click here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

2 Comments »

Piercing The Mystery Of In-N-Out Burger

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin

In-N-Out Burger, a popular chain of restaurants in the west coast of the United States is an extremely secretive private company. Seth Lubove pieced together information from a variety of sources to paint a fuller picture of the chain:

  • While the company is private, based on what little information is available, the chain is valued anywhere between $1.1 and $2 billion.
  • The company is wholly owned by the granddaughter of the chain’s founders. She has no college degree yet is thought to be the youngest female American billionaire.
  • The company refuses to franchise in an apparent bid to maintain quality control.
  • The chain uses fresh beef patties that are delivered to the stores every day from two distribution facilities. The chain only opens in locations that are within a day’s driving distance from the distribution facilities.
  • The estimated 20% margin that In-N-Out Burger manages to maintain is in part due to the simplicity of its limited menu.

Read more about the minor family feud that took place in the past, comments from In-N-Out Burger, and what the youngest female billionaire likes to do with her free time over here.

Source: Bloomberg

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McWorld

9:00 am in Daily Bulletin

McWorld

Jeb Boniakowski wants to build a McWorld in Times Square. Here’s what it would look like:

  • The McWorld would have all of the items that McDonald’s serves across all locations all over the world. You can see some of the more interesting items over here. They include the McSpicy Paneer, McBeer, and McRice pictured above.
  • One section of McWorld would be revamped every month to look like a McDonald’s in some other country with all its local customs. Germany’s McDonald’s charges for condiment packets and in Hong Kong, McDonald’s hosts weddings. You could get those experiences in McWorld.
  • This section might also sometimes show what a typical McDonald’s of the past looked like.
  • Discontinued menu items could be bought at McWorld. These would include chocolate stick french fries and McPizzas.
  • A McDonald’s labs would invite celebrity chefs to make their own dishes using basic McDonald’s ingredients like chicken nuggets and french fries.

Read more about the Cloud Atlas inspired look that it would have and other features of the proposed McWorld over here.

Source: The AWL

Via: Kottke

1 Comment »

Exclusive Dog Clubs

9:00 am in Daily Bulletin

The next big thing for dogs? Exclusive clubs, writes Bob Morris:

  • To get into high end dog clubs, the dog needs to go through a rigorous interview process to see if the dog would be a good ‘fit’ for the club.
  • These clubs are particularly worried about canines that exhibit “toy aggression” or those that don’t share treats. All of this can cause anxiety in the clubs’ other four-legged members, and the owners of the club want it to be a peaceful experience for all patrons.
  • Dogs that are accepted have their information stored in an online database which handlers use to know what to expect when dealing with the pet.
  • A variety of services are available at these clubs including, yoga and massages for the dog.

Read more about these clubs, the people who work there, and the experience of one dog-owner who got choked up seeing his pet get accepted into an exclusive club over here. You can also read about menus and hotels designed specifically for dogs in our series on pet perks over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Tags: Pet Perks
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What Dogs Tell Us About Economics And Culture

9:00 am in Daily Bulletin

Theresa Bradley and Ritchie King argue that you can tell a lot about a country by the relationship it has with pet dogs. Highlights include:

  • Dog ownership can be thought of as an economic indicator. As incomes rise; pet ownership rises. America, unsurprisingly, has the highest number of dogs, with one pooch for every four Americans.
  • India has the fastest growing population of dogs. There is now a TV station available just for dogs.
  • Switzerland has seen its dog population shrink in recent times.
  • Hong Kong and Singapore have the most dogs per-square-kilometer but that’s because those city-states have a high population density. Asian countries in general appear to dislike dogs and have low rates of dog ownership.
  • Middle Eastern countries have a preference for large dogs – perhaps because dogs are seen as hunters and guardians rather than companions.

The full article here has many more statistics including the country with the highest number of small dogs, and the country which spends the most on dog food. Or check out our coverage of some of the crazier services available for dogs including plastic surgery, funerals, and special restaurants.

Source: Quartz

Tags: Pet Perks
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A Love Motel For Dogs

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin, Signature

Centives has reported in the past on restaurants and menus designed specifically for dog owners. Now entrepreneurs in Brazil have taken things a few steps further in launching a love motel for dogs:

  • The motel rooms have heart shaped mirrors, red mattresses, and mood-setting lighting.
  • Dog owners can pay $50 for a mating session where dogs can do things in privacy and comfort. Doggie beer costs extra. Spa services are available.
  • If the attempt to mate is unsuccessful then the motel can arrange for artificial insemination.
  • In addition to the on-call veterinarians the upscale motel keeps 35 staff on hand.
  • Other services available for pets in Brazil include a pet taxi that transports the animals, café’s that specialize in pet food (“beef-flavoured muffins”), $40-a-bottle perfume for dogs, and plastic surgeons willing to provide Botox injections to pets.

Read more about the hotel, the people behind it, and why one pet owner was impressed with the establishment over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Tags: Pet Perks
1 Comment »

What Makes Something Cool?

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin

A speech by Neil deGrasse Tyson caused Jeff Porten to think about what it means for something to look cool. He pointed out:

  • We think the SR-71 Blackbird (pictured above), and the Concorde look cool, but not the double deckered Airbus A380.
  • We consider the Saturn V space rocket to look pretty cool, but not the Atlas V.
  • Yet the SR-71 Blackbird, Concorde, and Saturn V are fifty years old, and none of them are in active service anymore. In contrast the modern A380 and Atlas V are considered to be ugly.
  • We don’t think that phones that are fifty years old look cool. But we do think these ancient pieces of technology do. Why? Perhaps it’s because they were at the very top of their class and we have yet to develop anything cooler. When we develop something that’s even better than these older pieces of technology, we’ll begin to think that the old things look dated.
    • It’s disappointing then that some of our best technology was invented half a century ago.

Read more about the argument and how this relates to the space race over here.

Source: TidBITS

Via: Marginal Revolution

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Pet Funerals

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin, Signature

We’ve seen restaurants with menus designed specifically for pets. It turns out that there are crematoriums and other such services that operate on largely the same principles. Eric Spitznagel wrote:

  • The pet after-care industry has grown tremendously – some report growth rates of hundreds and thousands of percent annually. In 2011 it was worth $52.87 billion.
  • Some of the services offered include $1,765 bronze grave markers and $1,135 velvet lined caskets. You can also get your pet freeze dried, embalmed, or have a diamond made of their remains.
  • According to one service provider, families are quite likely to complain about the cost of burying/cremating their human relatives. They never complain about the cost of after care services for their pets.
  • Some suggest it is because baby boomers find their only source of companionship in their pets after their children leave home or their spouses pass away. But young people are just as likely to use these services.

Read more including some of the other options offered, and why people from Ohio will bury their dogs in Pennsylvania, but not their relatives, over here.

Source: Business Week

Tags: Pet Perks
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What The Cheesecake Factory Can Teach American Hospitals

12:00 pm in Daily Bulletin, Signature

Atul Gawande got an inside look at how The Cheesecake Factory is able to deliver such great food at surprisingly low prices. We’ll get to the healthcare part of it soon enough but highlights of just the restaurant chain’s production process include:

  • Most of the 308 items on a Cheesecake Factory menu are made from scratch. Only the Cheesecake itself is premade…at an actual factory for cheesecake in California.
  • All Cheesecake Factory kitchens are designed in the same way. They are made to look like real factories with manufacturing lines that begin with raw ingredients which are chopped up, and end with the finished product.
  • There are computer monitors in the kitchens that show the orders assigned to the station. The touch screens illustrate what the finished product should look like and also detail the raw ingredients to use and the steps of the recipe.
  • The screen includes a timer that shows how long the item should take to prepare. Once it approaches the target time the background turns yellow. If it’s late it turns red.
  • Yet the screens only show what to do – not how to do it. Each cook brings their own experience and style to the recipe. Care is taken to not let the food look manufactured.
  • Before the food goes out it is rated on a scale of one to ten. An eight means that a couple of corrections are needed. Anything lower than a seven is immediately rejected and must be remade.
  • If a restaurant orders too many groceries, then they rot away, wasting money. Order too few and customers will become frustrated and leave. The Cheesecake Factory aims to throwaway no more than 2.5% of the groceries it purchases. This is a phenomenal target as it requires near-perfect knowledge about which kinds of food customers will order.
  • These forecasts are done through models that monitor both recent and long term rends, and take into account things such as sporting events that will likely keep people at home.
  • Every six months a new menu item is introduced – anybody can suggest it. The CEO himself enjoys suggesting and sampling new ideas.
  • Rolling out the new dishes to all of the cooks, servers, and restaurants across the United States takes just 7 weeks.

But how does this all fit into healthcare? Gawande notes that “restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation” on a very large scale across hundreds of locations. This is exactly the challenge that health care in the United States faces today, and there is much to learn, especially in terms of standardization.

To find out exactly what lessons need to be learnt and how test projects have performed check out the full article here.

Source: The New Yorker

Via: Newmark’s Door

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