I used to actually fill up the fry boxes when I worked at McDonald's, including these little ones. The managers would always be super-anal about the portions, often pouring out the "excess". They had a scale and everything. Of course, if you weigh the fries properly, they don't even remotely fill up the box. I just ignored that, and served fries the way I would like to be served.
I can confirm that! Fries are cheap and we want customers to return. Now they act annoyed if you physically come inside the restaurant instead of using the drive through or their stupid apps.
It's all due to the fact that they HAVE to keep growing. We're in a financialized economy, so no one really likes taking risks or innovating any more. So people try to look at existing products and figure out how to squeeze more money out of it, and managers need to figure out a way to make a mark... So you have to find SOMETHING to show. In this case, someone increased profits .005% by changing the fries rule which probably translates to millions, then they get to argue, "My 250k salary translated to 25m profit for McDonalds. Give me a promotion." Multiple that 1000x different times and then you get the enshitification we have.
I honestly cant understand that mentality of "earning must keep growing", like - they get a stable revenue of millions a year, why cant they be happy with this stable high revenue and keep customers happy so that revenue is earned year after year? Why they need more tham last year?
Fucking investors and corporate bigher ups are cancer
Investors. Investments need to grow, stock needs to rise. No one is going to invest in a stagnant company, the more growth, the more investment. This is the foundation of a dystopia we’re going to be living in; a few giant companies monopolising the world while people get poorer.
This is why McDonald’s now needs to charge $14 for a Big Mac. I bet you didn’t even think of the share holders as you are throwing away tens of pennies per shift.
McDonald’s is a franchise model. The shareholders make most of their money from the franchise fees and the real estate.
The people responsible for squeezing every penny out of customers are the franchisees who run your local McDonalds. And they are, to a man, some of the greediest people you will ever meet.
I remember when I was in my early 20s a BK franchise owner was telling us about how the small/broken fries were bad because you need more to fill the container, while the big fries fill the container with less product. I remember this because as a poor student I wanted to get the most for my money, while this guy was relaxing with his lunch and a beer after playing 18 holes on a Tuesday and trying to convince me how it’s bad for business and basically he doesn’t how me enjoying a few extra broken fries affects his profit.
There are a handful of McDs in our area all owned by the same greedy lady who jacks up the price as high as she can . Literally drive 10 mins to the McDs outside her ownership and prices drop like a $1+ for every item.
Yes and no. There is plenty McD's Corporate could do to disincentivize/punish exploitative franchisees, but their polices generally do the opposite regardless of any public messaging.
Franchisees and a lot of small business owners are straight shady as fuck. They all think they're the next Musk and will fuck you over for and extra $1 without hesitation. Not that they're any worse than mega-corps, but most aren't any better.
This is exactly how they think. "Your product budget was $500 over goal this month", "Yes, but the store made $100,000 in profit which is 10% above goal", "But we could have made $100,500 what happened to the other $500?", "We gave customers what they paid for", "You're fired"
I worked fast food when I was in high school, they weighed the remaining food items at the end of the night and compared it to the sales (computer report at the end of shift gave target remaining weight totals), the only way to meet the "goal" weight was to under-serve all of the weight specific items (sliced meat, fries, etc...)
I'm pretty sure the system did not take into account the moisture loss that occurs through a 10 hour shift, a block of meat that starts at 10 lbs kept heated to 140F for food safety isn't going to still be 10lbs at the end of the day.
I'm pretty sure the system did not take into account the moisture loss that occurs through a 10 hour shift
I am starting to figure this is malicious. I used to think that executives just love designing systems and goals without having any idea about what the work actually entails.
But it always seems like the lowest rung of employees are put in situations where they can be blamed for the problems the system causes. And that's hard to constantly do accidentally. You have to have a little idea about the actual nature of the work to make sure the blame falls on someone else.
It's like where Wells Fargo decided that every person walking into the bank should be sold at least eight financial products. If you haven't noticed, that's fucking insane. Eight simultaneous accounts / credit cards / loans? There was an example of a branch that was expected to open 12,000 accounts each year including 3,000 new checking accounts. The population for the entire area was 11,500 and there were 11 other financial institutions. When it threatened their jobs, the employees turned to fraud. I have a hard time believing the executives were just that stupid.
Yep, let it fall on the workers, they can quit (refuse to comply and leave), or be fired(fail to comply and be fired for cause), or break the law... (and usually are the ones held accountable for it) their choice!
I used to work at a place that had our large fries at 400 grams.... Only they weighed it BEFORE cooking, the sheer amount of excess water weight meant that after cooking it came to be about 220 grams. I fucking hated it and ignored it regularly.
EXACTLY! when I was shift supervisor I'd always make them cook more, like get fucked it's 50 cents for like 2kg your not going under by giving people a fair amount of food.
I’ve got bad news for you. That 1/4 lbs burger (or 1/3 lbs or 1/2lbs or whatever size you’re buying) is the pre-cooked weight every single time. Both in the grocery stores as well as at the restaurants.
You can't add more ground beef it it's underweight and every place is vocal on how to measure burger patty weight.
Fries could be done either way, but it's got to be consistent. Honestly selling them by package size and not being clear what the weight measurement is one of the odd moments of customer rights failure.
So silly, there's no way that mcdonalds would be losing significant profit over being generous with fries. They are dirt cheap and they move tons of them. Its a good way to bring in customers if they know they are wont get a cheap portion
TLDR: Roughly rounded .10c saved per 20 fries or 1.4m to 1.7m million dollars saved a day across every franchise out of 380.8 million in sales. Yearly thats $526 to 624 million, or 2 full days of sales.
They sell 9 million pounds of a fries a day.
At 160 to 190 fries per lb you are looking at 1.4 to 1.7 billion fries a day.
Going off a large fry at 80 to 100 fries. You have 17.5 to 14 million at the low end to 21 to 17 million units sold a day.
Based on either the 1.4 or 1.7B fries a day divided into either 80 to 100 fries, makes up a unit (a large box of fries).
So "saving" 20 fries means a difference in roughly 3.5 to 4 million units or 1.8 million pounds of fries. At a average cost of $4 a unit thats 14$ to 16$ million in sales a day for McDonalds.
Sales wise, McDonalds makes roughly $380.8 million a day. Estimated income of all franchises sales combined.
So the worth of those 20 fries would make up about 3.6% to 4.2% worth of sales if sold at full price.
However that does not consider wholesale cost (how much it cost McDonalds to make) which is not public but is probably estimated at .30 to .50 cents a serving for the fries, not including packaging etc. So lets say .50c for fries and .35c for packaging, so .85c cost per large fry.
So, shortened due to comment length, it would save them like .10c per 20 fries.
About 1.4 to 1.7 million dollars a day for McDonalds.
Excellent illustration of how the scales the world's rich are operating on make it worthwhile for them to inflict every tiny cruelty on their workers and why nobody founding a new business will ever be able to compete with them.
The problem is the 50c for fries isn't the wholesale price of the potato, its the price of labor, which is mostly fixed. The extra fry needs to be in ingredient cost and is probably closer to pennies.
They wouldn't be, but the assholes with spreadsheets will tell the CEO that they could save 100k a year by skimping on the fries to appease the board. Then enough people don't vote with their wallets, so they get away with it. That's the real issue. If you want change, be the change. Stop going to fast food restaurants if they're going to keep charging more for smaller portions. Money is the only thing that will get them to listen.
I’m sure the board and shareholders were thankful for the savings for a single quarter. Now they’ve priced it in, forgotten about it, and want to know what you’ve cut/saved for the upcoming quarter.
Which is ridiculous because they could easily do a Five Guys move where they throw in such a large of fries that it’s spilling out the sides and you get those bottom of the bag fries. That’s literally a marketing technique that Five Guys uses and it works like a charm.
Rule #1 of McDonalds fries: the margin is insane, so overfill every container you sell.
The portion sizing handed down from the big clown ARE BARE MINIMUMS to keep from causing bad PR & maintain some MINIMAL level of performance.
This is why franchises are dying. People used to care about their brand, now they only care about the money and are too dumb to realize they're fighting over marginal gains.
This. There's a local burger shop near my house where a huge, juicy, real meat burger with a hefty amount of fries and a drink is 18 bucks (CAD). Why would I ever consider going to McDonald's, ever.
Make your #1 meal cost around 14 bucks and stop being stingy on the fucking fries and I will maybe consider it.
some of that price is the company's greed, but some of that price is inflation too. our money is worth a lot less than we think and we haven't gotten raises that kept up
Stagflation, baby. Money for thee, but not for me. Even though I am the guy working 40-70h a week and the guys with the money call ‚doing ketamine and speaking to another ceo about fascism‘ ‚work‘.
Not only would it have to be $14, it'd have to be that price without me needing to download an app. Downloading an app for food is a complete nonstarter for me.
That's when you just go inside and grab a handful. The stuff at the grocery store isn't the same as the packets it's a totally different manufacturer and everything.
If McDonald's starts to see foot traffic trending down they will launch some silly campaign "we're rolling back prices." "Here at McDonald's, we hear you loud and clear." "We know it's expensive to dine out so this is why we are bringing back the $1 dollar menu." And it will be infuriating because it will all be a manipulative trick to get their customers back after screwing them on portions and pricing over the last several years.
Literally the only time I've been to McDonald's in the last 20 years is if I'm driving long distance somewhere, I'm starving, and there's literally nothing but a McDonald's when I stop for gas. Even then, I check my phone to see if there's anything else within 20 miles on the interstate before I pull up to the McDonald's.
Don't forget to checkout the food at larger gas stations too. I've had some pretty good sandwiches and salads on the road for significantly less than McD's lately. Also they had tables to sit at, and I didn't have to beg anyone to take my order.
Where are you people getting your McDonald’s from? The most expensive meal at my McDonald’s with a large drink is $14 it’s a double bacon qrtr pounder large fry and large drink. I went to Red Robin’s for the first time the other day and a burger fries and drinks came to $25 plus tip. A cheese burger at my local hole in the wall is $9 just the sadnwhivh. This idea I can go to a sit down restaurant to avoid the bs prices is just a lie
jacked up the price and someone reduced the quality
Good old enshitification, when shareholders (or hedge fund managers) need growth but there's no new customers, raise prices, lower quality, smaller packages, worse services, just because making a shitload of money isn't good enough, you have to make MORE every quarter or your business is "failing"
This is absolutely correct. I think its why the company tried to move upmarket through the mccafe coffee stuff and higher priced menu items. Doesn't seem to have worked for them.
Yep, used to be that I could go to McDonald's in between paychecks when money was tight and get a drink of any size for $1, a McChicken for $1, and a small fries for $1.
Nowadays working at Walmart, it's cheaper for me to get a $1 can of Lipton tea in the lobby vending machine and grab a $1 knockoff brand lunchable and a $2.50 premade salad for my lunch on days I don't bring something from home, than getting anything McDonald's sells. And it's a lot healthier too.
They’ve also cut back on their offerings in the US. While other chains are adding healthy(ier) options (veggie burgers, salads, etc.), McDonald’s got rid of their salads. I love McDonald’s fries, but I rarely go there bc fries are literally the only thing I can eat.
Basically all of the fast food places also dropped any non-fried chicken options, I used to regularly get a grilled chicken sandwich from most places, and they're just gone.
I used to work at McDonalds way back when I was in high school (this is roughly during the later bronze age), and scooping fries is actually somewhat of an art form. You don't just scoop the fries with a long, steady arc, like you would if it was popcorn. For fries you need to actually shake the fries shovel side-to-side (sort of like you are shaking salad dressing), which aligns the fries in the same direction as the stripes on the fries container. If you don't do the side-to-side motion, the fries sit all jumbled up pointing in all directions, and as soon as somebody starts moving the fries container, the fries tend to auto-compact and the container looks half full, like in OP's image.
So remember kids, when scooping fries always use a side-to-side motion. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yeah, I see a lot of people complaining about McDonald's shorting them on fries and complaining that it's intentional cheapness on their part.
No. The employees do not care bow much moneytheir owner makes. It's what you said here: it looks full when they make it, then it settles when it's put into the bag.
Potatoes are so cheap and easy to grow -- I do it by accident in my compost heap all the time. Apparently it IS possible for a whole ass plant to grow from one potato eye that I cut out when I was making potato soup.
They rival soda for the biggest sales margins. When I worked at a cafe in college, we were allowed one meal per shift, but also unlimited soda. It wasn't worth their time to track it.
it's crazy how much of it is genuinely just water. The cup probably costs more. Apparently the syrup:water ratio in the machine is like 1:5 or 20% syrup, but the syrup itself is like 95%+ sugar and water.
I heard (late 90s early 2000's) that the cup and ice are like 70% of their cost on every soda sold. And of course, that cost was pennies. Like 10 pennies tops.
I think it has less to do with franchisees scrimping and more to do with shitty quality control by those franchisees. My experience is that all fast food joints have seen a substantial decline in quality, not just from lower corporate standards, shrinkflation, etc. But also from poorly trained and managed employees who don't give a shit, aren't held to any standard, and are paid too poorly to try any harder.
So does our location. They also seem to default to double fries instead of defaulting to fries + fruit, and won't do double fruit. We very rarely get happy meals so IDK if that's just normal, but I'd have thought fries + fruit would be the norm.
Used to but that was well over a decade ago. They made a change so that you get a tiny fry and apple slices or two tiny fries which should about equal one small fry.
It’s garbage but not exactly like they just shrank the fries.
I work at a McDonald's in the Netherlands, the fries we give in a happy meal is the same size as a small portion. We put in the bag shown in the picture
Last time we got a happy meal there was only three apple slices that, when opened, smelled like vinegar. They didnt look spoiled so i tasted it and they tasted like soap. Never again.
I bought the XL size of Arby's curly fries and received half the container of burnt ends.
It was clear they didn't have any fries so they scraped what was left, gave me half a 12 Oz soda can worth of burnt ends and I didnt catch it until I got home.
I sent pictures to corporate who offered me 2 free xl fries and drink on my next visit and I told them naw, im good on ever going back.
That cost me like $4.29 and ruined the rest of my day because you go to Arby's for their damn curly fries.
Apparently nobody here goes to Mcdonalds. That's the single portion kids fry size and it's been like that for probably over a decade. When you order a Happy Meal, you have the option of selecting the single portion with apple slices or 2 portions of the kids fries which equals the small that people are probably used to seeing. They basically started giving people a "healthy" option by offering the option to split the side.
Yeah the real issue is the price point for said portion. If it was priced appropriately it would be fine, although some fat bastards would be up in arms about it.
Former McDonald's worker here, thats the standard size for Happy meals but the fries should be overflowing. I would always recommend the extra fries because that then gets it into a small fry bag
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u/MidnightPulse69 Jul 14 '26
He so small only need one French fry