In his text ”Globalization of Fast Food. Behind the Brand McDonald’s” Peter Salisbury mentions that ”by buying McDonald’s in the UK, you are still buying from the same clown”. By naming the ”clown” he refers to the global advertising character ”Ronald McDonald”
Peter Salisbury says that in the course of criticism that McDonald’s had to face in the late 20th century they started a campagne of rethinking. But just in the UK. Because of the allgeation that McDonals is for example responsible for exploitation of children, wrong advertising of their foods, low wages for their workers and indirectly sponsoring cruelty to animals, they started a agressive campaign to improve their image. Since then they wanted to represent themselves as a eco and farmer friendly company. They printed ingredients lists on their products to make themselves more transparent for customers. In the course of this movement they undertook other measures. For example the UK’s McDonald’s guarantees that animals are not fed with genetically modified grand or there is no factory farming anymore.
I totally agree with Peter Salisbury, because even if the UK’s and European McDonald’s can guarantee for their eco image there are other branches in other countries that all belong to the McDonald’s company. And the food that is served in other branches, for example in the US, comes from animals that were fed on GM crops or were cultured on livestock farms. And this food somewhere on the planet comes from the same big company that cooks your food in Europe, named McDonalds.
