Major Fast Food Outlets example essay topic

The first and probably most important area on the topic of globalisation and food is the issue of food policy and food security. It is believed that the vast inequalities between the rich and the poor of this world have strong links to way both developing and developed countries manage, or are forced to manage, their food resources. Two documents are of particular interest to the debate as to what is to blame for the increased inequality mentioned. A recent Oxfam report states that "the problem is not that international trade is inherently opposed to the needs and interests of the poor, but that the rules that govern it are rigged in favour of the rich" (Fowler, 2003: 2). This point is validated by the fact that "when developing countries export to rich country markets, they face tariff barriers that are four times higher than those encountered by rich countries. Those barriers cost them $100 bn a year - twice as much as they receive in aid" (Fowler, 2003: 2).

The report claims that while rich countries impose such tariffs, the poorer countries are pressurised by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to open their markets at breakneck speed, often with damaging consequences. The other key document I looked at was an article by Bonnie Setiawan, which was submitted to the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development. Setiawan blames globalisation and import liberalisation for the current crisis in developing countries. Her key point is that "this liberalisation of foodstuffs is the treatment of foodstuffs and agriculture as industrial products which are traded freely like manufactured goods. As the United Nations once said, food becomes a commodity, instead of a human right; it becomes part of free trade and the free market" (Setiawan, 2001: 1-2). Setiawan goes on to show what import liberalisation has done to Indonesia.

"Data from the World Trade Organisation shows that we (Indonesia) have become the world's largest rice importer, with 5.8 tons in the fiscal year of 1998/1999 hence absorbing some 25% of the world's rice trade. Earlier, Indonesia ranked as the world's ninth highest rice exporter and was also self-sufficient in regards to rice" (Setiawan, 2001: 1-2). As Hartwig de Haen correctly states the countries that will not be able to compete in this expanded market, for example, those with non-modernised agricultural systems, are the ones for which agriculture is still the backbone of their economies (de Haen, 2001: 1). This is why food policy needs to be better managed so as to stop export dumping by rich countries and to give developing countries a chance to develop. The relevance of this is that though we claim to understand very few people really get that millions of people are starving and suffering. It also seems that the problems could be solved not with everybody donating twenty euro to Concern or Trocaire but with are few changes in policy.

Globalisation and it's relationship with food also effects us closer to home. It has given us fast, convenient food. But it has also lead, in my opinion, to the eliminating of national eating habits, lack of quality (in 2001 a poll by Restaurants and Institutions found that the lowest quality food in any major hamburger chain was found in McDonalds) and poor jobs. Firstly, I will look at the effect that the globalised food industry has had on jobs. The McDonalds chain is, with doubt, the king of fast food. According to Eric Schlosser they are responsible for 90% of America's new jobs and "it is estimated that one out of every eight workers in the United States has at some point been employed by McDonalds" (Schlosser, 2002: 4).

McDonalds are also widely credited with the creation of the throwaway 'McJob' which was defined by international trade unionist Dan Gallin as "a low skill, low pay, high stress, exhausting and unstable job" (Klein, 2001: 237). The strict regimentation at fast food restaurants creates standardised products (Burger King staff are instructed on the ideal thickness of each french fry, 0.28 inches thick). This in turn gives fast food companies an enormous amount of power over their employees. Jobs that have been 'de-skilled' can be filled cheaply. The need to retain any individual worker is greatly reduced by the ease with which he or she can be replaced.

In Britain, there was the Mc Libel case in which two Greenpeace activists were taken to court for criticising McDonalds' employment practices. Though they were found guilty on several counts the judge did concede that "the allegation that McDonalds 'pays it's workers low wages, helping to depress wages for workers in the catering trade in Britain has been proven to be true" (Klein, 2001: 237). In Ireland, more recently, we saw Super macs fined for making under 18 year olds work later than ten o' clock on a school night. Fast food outlets also pioneered the casualisation of labour which spread across the service industry as a whole and even further. As Klein sees it almost every major labour battle of the decade has focused on the issue of enforced casualisation "from the United Parcel workers's tand against 'part-time America' to the union ised Australian dockworkers fighting their replacement by contract workers... All these stories are about different industries doing variations on the same thing: finding ways to cut ties to their workforce and travel light" (Klein, 2001: 237).

I think the issue of casualisation is extremely relevant at the moment with most companies implementing it. From a personal viewpoint, I have been working at the Eurospar supermarket for nearly two years and have seen these changes take place. The average shift has been cut to four hours. The middle aged managerial staff have been replaced by teenagers and people in their earlier twenties. These employees often think they " re just passing through and they normally don't have families of their own to take care of so they can be paid less and they don't require the benefits a middle aged person often would.

Another thing that Eurospar has in common with the major fast food outlets is it's fear of unionisation. Eric Schlosser gives numerous accounts of various McDonalds outlets closing just as unionisation seemed imminent e.g. St. Hubert, Montreal 1997. Lansing, Michigan 1972. Schlosser concludes his series of accounts by saying "As of this writing, none of the workers at the roughly fifteen thousand McDonald's in North America is represented by a union" (Schlosser, 2002: 77).

The issue of national eating habits is fairly straight forward and it fits in with one of the main criticisms of globalisation: it erodes national and even regional cultures. With fast food outlets it's the same menu and the same ingredients no matter which corner of the globe you find yourself in. Although now and again you may see the Greek kebab special in favourite major fast food outlet, this is just assimilated culture, it drags it into mass culture and it becomes no longer specific to anything except in a harmless, stereotypical fashion. Klein sums it up when she says "Despite the embrace of poly ethnic imagery, market-driven globalisation doesn't want diversity; quite the opposite. It's enemies are national habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes" (Klein, 2001: 129). Fast food outlets use approaches to retailing like clustering {setting up many franchises in the area until all competition (or choice) is pretty much defeated} or big-box (a big store in a key location).

These major fast food outlets have the money to outbid for space and supplies, to drive down prices and even to keep them artificially high. Although independent restaurants can and do thrive it is normally in the high-end, specialty role. This leaves it to the major outlets, as we have seen in America and the bigger European countries, to blanket cities, towns and suburbs with self-replicating clones. The relevance of this to Ireland, I believe, is not so much that we will have McDonalds and Burger Kings in all the suburbs but that almost everyone in the food business is adopting the McDonalds approach. Look at the local 24 hour garage and the Hot counter in your local supermarket, all mini-McDonalds with little choice, poorly paid staff and they are spreading and expanding. Globalisation has influenced food production but with it's need for increased efficiency it has lead to shortcuts being taken.

This is particularly dangerous with regards to beef products. According to Schlosser "the meatpacking system that arose to supply the nation's (America) fast food chains - an industry molded to serve their needs, to provide massive amounts of uniform ground beef so that all of McDonald's hamburgers would taste the same - has proved to be an extremely efficient system for spreading disease" (Schlosser, 2002: 77). He goes on refer to a nationwide survey in 1996 that found that 7.5% of ground beef samples taken at processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7% with Listeria monocytogenes (which proves fatal in one out of five cases), 30% with Staphylococcus aureus and 53.3% with Clostridium perfringens. (Schlosser, 2002). A unnamed government health official told Eric Schlosser that the sanitary conditions in a modern feedlot were easily comparable to the to those in a crowded European city during the Middle Ages, "when people dumped their chamber pots out the window, raw sewage ran in the streets, and epidemics raged" (Schlosser, 2002: 201).

The problem of lack of quality safe food and the throwaway job link up according to Dr. Patricia Griffin, one of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's leading experts. "We place our lives in their hands in the same way we entrust our lives to the training of airline pilots" (Schlosser, 2002: 222). Griffin worries that a low-paid, unskilled workforce composed of teenagers and recent immigrants may not always be familiar with proper food handling procedures. Couple this with the lack of training received and the low prestige and just passing through nature of the job and we see this needs serious attention.

Just to hit home the point, food poisoning does not just mean some vomiting and a slight case of diarrhea, in the last eight years in the United States approximately half a million people have been made ill, thousands have been hospitalised and hundreds have died due food poisoning incidents (Schlosser, 2002). The relevance of this hardly needs to be stated but this is not just confined to America, a girl I know returned in a critical state from Spain after eating at a McDonalds and is now short one kidney. When people go abroad they sometimes are unsure where to go and eat, the above incidents make the 'at least you know what you " re getting at McDonalds' attitude seem laughable. Finally, there is the cost-cutting and time-saving 'developments' that have been made in food production so as to make the most out of the worldwide market. Agriculture in America and in Europe relies less and less on raw materials and more so on non-renewable chemicals. According to Bonnie Setiawan, in the U.S. 75% of all processed food has high artificial content e.g. orange juice with little orange content, sausages with less and less sausage meat.

Setiawan also raises an interesting point when looking at the genetically modified food craze. "Almost half of the patents on 'GM Foods' are controlled by 14 large corporations with patents in staples: rice, wheat, soybeans, corn, potatoes and sorghum... the monopolization allowed by the control of such technology would lead to the need for all farmers of corn, soybean or rice to buy from the firms involved - meaning unlimited markets and extraordinary profits" (Setiawan, 2001: 1-2). This is distinct possibility with the influence of globalisation constantly telling us food is a commodity that can produced quicker and cheaper and sold everywhere for any price they deem fit.