Latest news with #SuperSizeMe
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Tiny McDonald's Spoon That Stirred Up Trouble In The 1970s
People can surprise you with how industrious they are sometimes, and that's not always a good thing. McDonald's learned this lesson the hard way back in the 1970s, thanks to the unintentional use of a tiny coffee spoon they provided that became associated with drug culture. The spoon came with every coffee and was meant for stirring. It was branded on the end of the handle with the golden arches, making it an unmistakable symbol of the company. The diminutive utensil, with its long neck and small bowl, was adopted by cocaine users as an ideal vessel for snorting the drug. In 1979, Joe Biden, a senator at the time, held hearings in Baltimore on the Model Drug Paraphernalia Act, which had been proposed as a way to curb drug use and allowed for almost anything in the proximity of drugs to be considered paraphernalia. The Paraphernalia Trade Association, which wanted looser restrictions, came to fight. On the other side of things, Joyce Nalepka, President of Drug-Free Kids: America's Challenge, recounted how representatives of the drug paraphernalia industry testified at the hearing that a McDonald's coffee spoon was "the best cocaine spoon in town." They even demonstrated how to use it, according to Congressional transcripts. Read more: 15 Failed Restaurant Chains We Actually Miss As noted by TIME, McDonald's was not embarrassed that the spoons were being misused in this way. But after that Baltimore hearing, Nalepka called McDonald's then-President Ed Schmidt because she thought he should have been embarrassed. After 20 minutes, he agreed to redesign the spoons, she wrote on CNBC. The company is no stranger to adapting to controversy. It dropped its Supersize menu in 2004 because "not many Supersize fries are sold," said spokesperson Walt Riker via CBS News. And while "Super Size Me" documentarian Morgan Spurlock confirmed the timing was just a coincidence after his film, according to the Guardian, it also came on the heels of a historic 2002 lawsuit by two teens accusing the chain of making them obese. The optics for Supersize and unhealthy menus were bad. In the 1980s, McDonald's had to field environmental concerns due to its McD.L.T. burger, one of the menu items we definitely don't miss. Packaged in a double-sided Styrofoam package to separate the hot side from the cold side, the waste was basically double that of a normal burger. Bowing to pressure from environmentalist groups, the package and sandwich were eliminated by the early 1990s. Given its concern with optics, it's not hard to see why the company wanted to distance itself from what drug users dubbed the "McSpoon" and put the whole controversy behind them. Besides, based on our review of its coffee, they don't want anything to draw more attention to it. Skip the coffee and try one of these much better breakfast items instead. Read the original article on Tasting Table.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
While nearly everything gets more expensive, Sweetgreen CEO defends $16 salads, imploring customers to think about the long-term cost of their health
Sweetgreen is undoubtedly one of the healthier fast-food options in the U.S., but it's also one of the most expensive. Salads cost about $16 on average, but the company's CEO encourages customers to think beyond today's price of a meal and instead consider the long-term impacts of what you eat. Consumer confidence is plummeting—and for good reason. Since 2020, prices on goods have jumped more than 23%, and there's fear surrounding President Donald Trump's new tariff policies as well as inflation. But one CEO is imploring consumers to think beyond today's price of their product, championing the long-term benefits it can bring. Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman told the New York Times that when you think about the cost of something, you have to sometimes think about the total cost of it. 'There's the cost to you, but when you eat certain things, what's the cost to your health? What's the cost to the environment?' said Neman, who launched the fast-casual salad chain in the mid-2000s while he was a student at Georgetown University. The company went public in late 2021 and now has 250 locations across the U.S.—and aspirations to make the brand the Starbucks of salad. Neman and his business partners, Nicolas Jammet and Nathaniel Ru, opened their first Sweetgreen near campus in Washington, D.C., in 2007. This was just about three years after the premiere of the documentary Super Size Me, which initiated conversations about the short- and long-term impacts of traditional American fast food. 'We were going to be rejecting the fast food of the previous generation,' Neman told the NYT. But healthier options inevitably mean a higher cost—and subsequently price for consumers. The average Sweetgreen salad costs about $16, according to Eater, while the average price of a Big Mac meal is about $10. 'People are paying not only for the quality of the taste in the food, but the fact that it's made by hand, the fact that we pay our farmers and our team members fairly,' Neman told NYT. However, Sweetgreen uses fresh ingredients from farm and produce partners, and the menu largely consists of vegetables, grains, and proteins—although it recently launched air-fried ripple fries that are about 160 fewer calories than McDonald's fries. The company also touted in an advertisement the fries have just five ingredients, while competitors include a litany of unrecognizable additives. 'Most companies process their food centrally and ship it out around the country,' Neman told the Wall Street Journal in 2024. 'In order to maximize the taste and the freshness, we believe that food should be made closer to where the guests are eating the food.' Plus, 'treating' yourself to Sweetgreen could actually end up being cheaper than buying groceries: Take it from former Fortune reporter Jane Thier. The average monthly cost of groceries for a single person is $504, BLS data shows. Sweetgreen didn't immediately respond to Fortune's request for additional comment. Although company profits were up to nearly $677 million for fiscal 2024, according to Sweetgreen's most recent earnings report, it still faced a net loss of about $90 million. Assuming a $16 average price for a salad from Sweetgreen, the company loses about $2.26 per meal, a Sherwood News analysis showed. Some of the highest costs include food, drinks, packaging, labor, and administrative costs, the earnings report shows. Another major cost for Sweetgreen has been investing in technology to power its pickup services, deliveries, and AI to provide suggestions to customers and maintain its loyalty program. 'Our path to profitability on a net income basis comes from a few levers,' Neman told WSJ. 'The first is continuing to grow our footprint. Second is growing sales in existing stores. The third is being very disciplined on our cost structure to make sure the incremental profit we're making is flowing through the bottom line.' Sweetgreen will report first-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings on May 8. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Sweetgreen's C.E.O. on Robots, ‘MAHA' and Why Salads Are So Expensive
When Jonathan Neman was a student at Georgetown in the mid-2000s, he and some friends wanted to start a restaurant. A fast-food restaurant, but it would be healthy. And cool. The documentary 'Super Size Me' had made waves, and 'we were going to be rejecting the fast food of the previous generation,' Mr. Neman said. He and his business partners, Nicolas Jammet and Nathaniel Ru, opened the first Sweetgreen in 2007, on the edge of campus on M Street in Washington. As they expanded, they decided against franchising the brand, keeping control of every new location. Soon it became a buzzy millennial lifestyle brand. It sponsored an annual music festival. It went public in late 2021. Sweetgreen now has more than 250 restaurants across the United States. The chain is known for its endlessly customizable salads — and for how quickly the cost of all those extra toppings and dressings can add up. (A recent lunch there cost me $16.28.) The company also runs a growing number of locations that include what it calls the Infinite Kitchen, with salad-slinging robots that assemble bowls faster than human workers. With great fanfare, Sweetgreen recently put fries on its menu — air-fried in avocado oil, to make customers feel better about adding a side of carbs to a salad. Much of its food is sourced locally, including avocados from California, which will limit the hit the company takes on tariffs, executives have told investors. And Sweetgreen doesn't cater just to office workers eating salads at their desks. Mr. Neman, 40, said he had heard that teenagers were 'obsessed' with the salads, which wasn't the case when Sweetgreen started. 'The fact that they think that eating healthy is cool is something that we envisioned,' he said at his office in Los Angeles, where the company is now based. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
