After reading Stefan Töpfer’s blog post “Do you like your burgers integrated?” a few interesting thoughts came to mind. A vital goal for successful companies is to meet and succeed their consumer’s needs and wants. In the case of fast food, the main trait that differentiates fast food companies from other restaurants and grocery stores such as Whole Foods, Cactus Club, etc.; is their ability to produce food for their consumer in a a very short time period.
Unfortunately, the world is starting to become more health conscious and consequently, are now picking healthier alternatives such as organic food. With this in mind, fast food restaurants will likely be hit with a significant drop in their number of consumers. So how will the fast food industry survive, if it does at all?
Will they accomodate to their consumers needs by producing ready-to-go organic food or will this be too costly? Furthermore, it is evident that some fast food restaurants have chosen to advertise their food to allow health conscious consumers to be persuaded into believing that their food is healthy. An example of this is Tim Hortons, who has advertised by asserting that “Enjoying a Real Lunch at Tim Hortons can help you maintain a healthy lifestyle while enjoying fresh, quality food on-the-go”. However, upon further investigation, it is clear that this is not true. A popular sandwich at Tim Hortons, the turkey, bacon club sandwich, contains 1340 mg of sodium, 55 g of carbohydrates and 0% of your daily value Vitamin A. How is that big companies such as Tim Hortons are able to get away with this? This is clearly an unethical business approach so why aren’t they being stopped?
