Fast Food Industry

The Klaus family has lived the fast-food industry's nightmare: people getting sick from E. coli. A few days after picking up a dinner of hamburgers and chicken nuggets at a Wendy's drive-in, the Salem, Ore., family received a call from county health inspectors inquiring whether they had eaten food from the chain. JoAnn Klaus already knew something was wrong: Her 4-year-old son, Evan, was hospitalized with diarrhea and dehydration, and 23-month-old Scott had similar symptoms.

Yuck. A McDonald's  worker in South Carolina has been arrested after surveillance video allegedly caught him spitting into cups of iced tea that had been returned by the customers because they weren't sweet enough. Meanwhile, the operator of the Simpsonville, S.C., fast-food franchise where the incident reportedly took place is asking the public to withhold judgment about his restaurant. “Nothing is more important to me than the safety and well-being of my customers," the franchise operator, John Kennedy, said in a statement released to The Times.

Despite slow growth in the fast-food industry, the parent of the Jack in the Box chain plans to open about 600 restaurants in the next five years. Foodmaker Inc., which operates more than 1,400 Jack in the Box outlets in 11 Western states, has continued to serve up sizzling earnings, even as Americans' appetite for fast food has begun to wane. The expansion will begin within a year as the San Diego-based company moves into three Southeastern states.

The restaurant industry is quietly — and successfully — fighting back against the enactment of so-called Happy Meal bans, which forbid restaurants like McDonald's to hand out toys with children's meals that are high in calories. Moving under the radar so stealthily that in some cases local politicians and anti-obesity activists missed it entirely, lobbyists in Florida and Arizona backed successful efforts to take away the power to enact such bans from cities and counties. In Nebraska, a proposed statewide Happy Meal ban died in February, even before its first legislative committee hearing.

Can a financial institution market jumbo CDs the same way Burger King pitches Whoppers? Yes, with a few modifications, according to Thomas C. Sawyer, a former Burger King marketing executive who recently joined San Diego-based Imperial Corp. of America, parent company of Imperial Savings, as senior vice president of marketing and communications services.

There's one thing that keeps Diana Bullen returning to the McDonald's restaurant inside the shopping mall where she works. Free McFood. Every fifth time she buys something--even a cup of coffee--at the McDonald's inside the Paramus Park Mall in northern New Jersey, she receives a coupon for a free menu item of comparable cost. Since Bullen is a cashier at a clothing store near the McDonald's, she stops there several times a week--usually for a McChicken sandwich.

At what was billed as the first "fast-food summit," experts met here Thursday to discuss the leftovers nobody wants: mountains of containers discarded after the hamburgers and tacos are gone. Californians generate about 8.2 pounds of trash per person a day, and half the state's garbage comes from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, said Pat Macht, spokeswoman for the state Integrated Waste Management Board.

Fast-food sales will stay flat in the year ahead, but the trendy quick-casual segment will see revenue grow by 20%, according to the author of an industry forecast released Wednesday. Quick-casual, which includes chains such as Baja Fresh and Boston Market, should see its market share grow to $6 billion, said Andrew Barish, a restaurant analyst at Banc of America Securities.

For nearly two decades in China, the KFC logo has enticed the hungry with the promise of juicy, crispy chicken. Now, Yum Brands Inc. -- which owns KFC and Pizza Hut as well as Taco Bell in the U.S. -- has some competition for the cravings of Chinese diners. After watching Yum gobble up much of China's emerging middle class, McDonald's Corp., which has 800 restaurants in operation in China, is ramping up development in the country.

As consumers clamor for healthier fare, the nation's fast-food chains have responded with a new mantra: Don't hold the lettuce. In the last year, nearly all of the largest burger chains in the U.S. have begun piling mandarin oranges, roasted almond slivers or charbroiled chicken on mounds of mixed spring greens, hoping to keep themselves out of the red. San Diego-based Jack in the Box Inc.

A regulation banning the establishment of new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles is unlikely to curb obesity rates, according to a study by researchers at Santa Monica think tank Rand Corp. Concerned about high levels of obesity, the lack of traditional grocery stores and a proliferation of fast-food eateries, the Los Angeles City Council approved a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in one of the poorest sections of the city last year. It has extended the ban through March of next year.

Fast-food restaurants are pondering how to deal with a new California law that tells restaurants to make more nutritional information available to customers. For now, eateries must make brochures with calorie counts and other nutritional information readily available. In 2011 they will have to post the information on their menus and menu boards. Panda Express, the Rosemead-based chain that dominates the Chinese food segment of the quick-serve market, is trying to get ahead of the curve.

Two federal lawmakers have introduced legislation to require fast-food and other chain restaurants to post calories on menu boards and food display tags. The chains also would have to put information about calories, fats, carbohydrates and salt on printed menus. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) on Thursday introduced the Menu Education and Labeling Act, called the MEAL Act for short.

When it comes to marketing movies to kids, fast food wasn't to Disney's taste. But 20th Century Fox sees nothing wrong with a Big Mac. The News Corp. studio has struck a partnership with McDonald's for five of its major movie releases through 2010, beginning with the summer sequels "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" and "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

Before the recession, Andrew Puzder, who heads the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's burger chains, liked to joke about how sharp-priced competitors were "giving food away." As the recession deepened and the number of 79-cent taco and 99-cent hamburger offers exploded, Puzder realized it was "no longer a joke; they are giving food away." Literally. On Monday, KFC gave away a free piece of its new grilled chicken just for the asking.

When I watch the Carl's Jr. commercial featuring "Top Chef" host and mega-model Padma Lakshmi make hot sweet love to a Western Bacon Cheeseburger, I have many thoughts, some of which, I confess, are not entirely to my credit. The spot features the former Mrs. Salman Rushdie sitting on a brownstone stoop in a clingy sundress hiked up mid-thigh, cramming the giant burger into her educated maw and sucking barbecue sauce from her fingers and wrists.

McDonald's: Behind the Arches by John F. Love (Bantam: $19.95) What could be more simple than a French fry? More basic than a hamburger? In "McDonald's: Behind the Arches," author John F. Love shows the time, money and NASA-like ingenuity that went into developing these two staples of the McDonald's menu.

To Darrell Barker, a 36-year-old Thousand Oaks sales manager, fast food had always been a part of life. Every lunch and perhaps a dinner a week was a large hamburger or double cheeseburger, with the usual trimmings. Did he know exactly what was in those items--what oil, for instance, his French fries were cooked in? "No. I never paid any attention to that stuff," he recalled.

Barely 300 feet separate Fullerton Union High School from a McDonald's restaurant on Chapman Avenue. Researchers say that's boosting the odds that its students will be super-sized. Teens who attend classes within one-tenth of a mile of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than peers whose campuses are located farther from the lure of quarter-pound burgers, fries and shakes.

Recessionary eating isn't always healthful eating, especially when it comes to the $1 value menus pushed by fast-food chains to keep sales growing through the economic slump, according to one health watchdog. Jack in the Box's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger was ranked "the most unhealthful" value item available among the offerings of national fast-food chains, according to an analysis by dietitians with the nonprofit Cancer Project in Washington that is scheduled to be released today.