The burger as we know it is going extinct

McDonald’s is curtailing Ronald McDonald’s public appearances in light of the rash of clown-clad pranksters scaring kids across the US and UK, with some “killer clowns” even showing up at the chain. Look: He was creepy before the whole clown thing.

↩︎ posted Oct. 13, 2016

The Impossible Burger—the first vegan meat—is available today for the first time on the West Coast. Grown in a lab to emulate animal proteins, it got good reviews as part of the menu at David Chang’s Momofuku. It’s even kosher. Competitor Beyond Meat has good news of its own: Tyson, one of the country’s biggest meat processors, just bought a five percent stake. (That’s a lot of steak.)

↩︎ posted Oct. 13, 2016

Among McDonald’s many troubles are the property rights of graffiti artists

Of all McDonald’s troubles, a copyright infringement over some in-store wallpapering doesn’t seem so major. But a lawsuit from the family of a graffiti artist is a problem for them, and it should be for us, too, because it’s time to set a precedent on the intellectual property rights of graffiti artists.

Dash Snow might have been fated to be a member of the 27 Club: it’s not wrong to suggest that there were “few figures more representative of a pre-crash New York art world led astray.” But he began as a graffiti artist, “number one on the vandal squad’s most-wanted list,” and his signature tag was SACE—the same that began showing up in McDonald’s a few years later.

↩︎ posted Oct. 13, 2016

The massive mouthful comprised of two beef patties, special sauce, American cheese, pickles onions, and lettuce served on a three-part sesame seed bun is waning in relevance, as customers ditch the frozen patty for “better-for-you” varieties at Shake Shack and Smashburger.

Only one in five millennials has tried a Big Mac.

↩︎ NY Daily News, posted Oct. 13, 2016

When meat is in the red, McDonald’s becomes a breakfast restaurant

“McDonald’s struggles in recent years have been due largely to the chain’s failure after 10:30 a.m.,” business analysts say, and the embarrasing fact is that they don’t sell enough burgers. That may be because red meat consumption is down across the board, declining in America more than 25 percent since its peak in the ’70s. Beef and veal consumption fell by three percent last year.

Somewhat incredibly, men eat 57 percent more meat than women.

↩︎ posted Oct. 13, 2016