The chief executive of McDonald's, Jim Skinner, clearly knows why his customers love his company's restaurants and last week attacked US regulators keen to ban children's meals as undermining parents. This follows a decision in San Francisco to ban the sale of toys with food that did not meet limits on calories, sugar and fat.
He told the FT: "We'll continue to sell Happy Meals. We've seen many years of someone trying to dictate behaviour through legislation. Our Happy Meals have been supported by parents since the 1970s. The nutrition of Happy Meals meets FDA guidelines."
For UK local retailers, and their suppliers, this is significant in that most traders fear that the willingness of politicians to legislate to improve the health of the population is out of proportion with the success of many measures. MPs that I have spoken to clearly disagree. They say that the smoking ban is a fantastic success. While they are nervous at the impact on local shops of tobacco measures, these kinds of initiatives still appeal.
For a company like McDonald's to feel confident in taking on the "food police" as Mr Skinner labelled the special interest groups must be good news for small retailers. Think about the lobbying that small retailers are doing on the tobacco display ban and the lack of public comment by the major sellers of tobacco products, including Tesco! Big corporations don't want to be caught in a backlash.
However, Mr Skinner appears to believe he knows why people buy from him: Happy Meals have been working for my customers for 40 years and they still love the format. Shoppers will vote with their wallets. You need to build up a similar story based on your shoppers and use this to provide stories to the local media and local regulators. One thing that will make an MP pause is the concern that he might do something that will be unpopular with a significant number of local voters.
He told the FT: "We'll continue to sell Happy Meals. We've seen many years of someone trying to dictate behaviour through legislation. Our Happy Meals have been supported by parents since the 1970s. The nutrition of Happy Meals meets FDA guidelines."
For UK local retailers, and their suppliers, this is significant in that most traders fear that the willingness of politicians to legislate to improve the health of the population is out of proportion with the success of many measures. MPs that I have spoken to clearly disagree. They say that the smoking ban is a fantastic success. While they are nervous at the impact on local shops of tobacco measures, these kinds of initiatives still appeal.
For a company like McDonald's to feel confident in taking on the "food police" as Mr Skinner labelled the special interest groups must be good news for small retailers. Think about the lobbying that small retailers are doing on the tobacco display ban and the lack of public comment by the major sellers of tobacco products, including Tesco! Big corporations don't want to be caught in a backlash.
However, Mr Skinner appears to believe he knows why people buy from him: Happy Meals have been working for my customers for 40 years and they still love the format. Shoppers will vote with their wallets. You need to build up a similar story based on your shoppers and use this to provide stories to the local media and local regulators. One thing that will make an MP pause is the concern that he might do something that will be unpopular with a significant number of local voters.
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