The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS Chad Johnson doesn’t apologize for eating a lot. He changes truck tires for a living. It’s strenuous work that he says burns a lot of fuel. So he had no stomach for a decision this week by McDonald’s Corp. to slice Super Size french fries and soft drinks from its menu. “That’s messed up,” said Johnson, 20, pausing between bites of a Double Quarter Pounder and Super Size fries Wednesday at a McDonald’s restaurant in downtown Dallas. He had a Super Size drink and extra Quarter Pounder on the side. “I’m a big fellow,” he said. “It’s my money and that’s what I want to eat. Why do they have to mess with that?” Depending on your view, the issue is either simplicity or damage control. For McDonald’s, the Super Size offerings had become a lightning rod that made the company the object of scorn from obesity lawyers, a movie director and super-sized patrons who all blame the world’s largest restaurant chain for expanding the nation’s waistline. The company announced Tuesday that in revamping its “core menu,” it will phase out the 7-ounce French fries and 42-ounce sodas ordered as part of a Super Sized meal. By the end of this year, the items will be removed from the menu in all 13,000 U.S. stores – both franchised and company-owned – though the company said it may offer them as promotional items for limited periods. McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Ill., has been sued twice for allegedly contributing to obesity and attendant ailments in patrons who said they dined regularly on McDonald’s fare. At a gathering in Boston last summer, health professionals and trial lawyers mulled even more ways to hold the restaurant industry – and fast food companies specifically – legally responsible for the nation’s obesity epidemic. In addition, the independent film, “Super Size Me,” in which director Morgan Spurlock suffers ill health after dining on only McDonald’s for a month, is expected to shine a negative light on fast food portions when it comes out this summer in wider release. “Whether it’s a legal issue or PR issue, I think they feel, `Let’s just take this issue off the table and give everyone one less reason to blame McDonald’s,'” said Ron Paul, president of Technomic, Inc., a Chicago-based restaurant consulting firm. “There’s a lot of finger pointing going on.” McDonald’s said the move is part of an overall campaign, begun two years ago, to revamp its “core menu” and is unrelated to lawsuits or unflattering films. “It has nothing to do with this documentary,” said McDonald’s spokesman William Whitman, who said Super-Sizing accounts for less than 10 percent of the chain’s meal orders. “There is no connection between this initiative and anything else other than simplification of the restaurant menu and offering a simplified, consistent relevant menu to our customers. … In many markets we have removed things like cookies and some of the pastries we offered for breakfast.” With the subtraction of the mondo-sized French fries and sodas, the company will have three sizes of fries – ranging from 2.6 ounce, (the average serving size a few decades ago) to 6 ounce – and four soda sizes. They will range from 12 ounces to 32 ounces. Both rationales are equally valid, restaurant analysts said. Menu shrinkage will help solve the company’s speed-of-service problems, and the move helps offer ammunition against lawsuits. “Their operations will probably benefit from a simplification of their menu and they’re also probably concerned about lawsuits and about appearing health conscious to consumers,” said Dennis Milton, Standard & Poor’s restaurants equity analyst. It costs food servers little, in terms of incremental food costs, to bump up the size of fries, or even movie theater popcorn. In the case of the fries, fast-food restaurants can charge an extra 30 cents or more for the larger size, which helps expand the average check. But it can also expand your belly. A Super Size order of fries has 160 more calories, and 7 more grams of fat than a medium order, according to the chain’s Web site. A super size Coke has 410 calories t Health System. As the nation has grown increasingly alarmed about the health effects of eating sugar and fat-laden foods, McDonald’s downsizing can help the company reap perception points. “I’d say it’s more about the PR and avoiding lawsuits and it has the added value of simplifying operations,” said Milton. “This is going to help them in the media,” he added.