On July 7, 1999, David Whipple bought a McDonald’s hamburger. He’s still got it. Mr. Whipple forgot that he put the burger in his coat pocket and found it two years later. Today the pickle is pretty sad, but the 14-year-old burger and bun look just … well, see for yourself:
McDonald’s is expanding the number of its hamburger franchises in China. It has 1,400 on the mainland now, and plans to add up to 250, including 100 new drive-throughs. McD’s claims this eatery escalation is not an attempt to overtake KFC’s dominance in China (3,200 stores) in a fast food arms race, merely a drive to claim the growing market share of Chinese beef eaters too fat and lazy to get out of their shiny new SUVs.
The world’s first in-vito meat hamburger will be ready this fall, according to Mark Post of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. He spoke last Sunday at the AAAS meetings in Vancouver, in a symposium called “The Next Agricultural Revolution: Emerging Production Methods for Meat Alternatives.”
Dr. Post has been growing the patty from cow stem cells and plans to put it to the ultimate scientific test: it will be cooked and eaten. The team hopes famed chef Heston Blumenthal will broil that burger and some other open-minded celebrity will eat it. Don’t look for lab-grown burgers in the drive-thru lane any time soon; it’s costing over $400,000 to make the first one.
Want a Wendy’s Foie Gras Rossini Burger? It’ll cost you $16 and a plane ticket to Japan. Wendy’s has reentered the Japanese market and introduced a luxury menu at a location in Tokyo’s tony Omotesandō neighborhood. That Foie Gras Burger also features truffles. You want fries with that?
A White Castle hamburger weighs 2 ounces. Martin Kessman weighs 290 pounds. Mr. Kessman loves his White Castle burgers, but complains that he can’t fit into the seats at the eatery, so he is suing the company under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Mr. Kessman, a 64-year-old New York stockbroker, says his complaints to the company have been met with promises, condescension, and hamburger coupons so, after two years, he is bringing suit in Federal court. We do not know if his case has legal merit, but it’s been a juicy Double Slider® for headline writers:
An upscale eatery in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood is serving kangaroo meat hamburgers. We haven’t been there yet, but we hear the place is hopping.
At first we thought McDonald’s had opened a UK franchise of famed Hamburger University. The Oak Brook, Illinois campus flips out 5,000 students a year (over 80,000 served), but doesn’t have much of a football team.
Britain’s Manchester Metropolitan University has it’s own McDonald’s degree program, though. The university’s Business School also runs degree programs for Tesco supermarkets and Booth’s. The latter is either for Booth’s supermarkets or Booth’s Gin.
Attention U.S. exchange students: “Chips” means “fries” in Blighty, “chips” are “crisps,” and the drive-thru window is on the wrong side of the building. Start studying now.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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