We (my wife and I) rarely eat hamburgers in Singapore. But we do have hamburgers when we travel or happen to be in places where tasty hamburgers catch our eyes. In Australia, one such place is Grill’d (with the catchphrase “Healthy Burgers”).
The hamburgers bring back a lot of memories. When I was in the U.K. (in the 80s), there was a popular game called “Trial Pursuit” – a Canadian board game in which winning is determined by a player’s ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. Television producers also featured them in their game programmes. I can still remember how I got to know why hamburgers are called as such.
So here is a Trivial Pursuit question – Why are hamburgers called hamburgers (there isn’t any ham in them)? Well, because they were introduced to the U.S. by immigrants from Hamburg. These early immigrants sold the “hamburgers,” which became very popular. Hamburgers, in due course, were exported to the rest of the world, amongst other means, through McDonald’s. Somewhere along the way, “ham” was replaced, and today we have beef burgers, chicken burgers, cheeseburgers, rendang burgers, and as of February 2022, 33 types of burgers.
When I was in business school, I learned that MacDonald’s was amongst the pioneers in fast food standardisation. In fast-food chains, the challenge is to produce food consistently, no matter where the outlet is located, be it in the domestic or international markets. Quality can be measured in many ways. For fast food chains, the consistency of a product is a critical factor. So, a Big Mac sold in San Francisco should be the same in Argentina, Beijing, or Ang Mo Kio. Welcome to Burgernomics!
In 1986, the Economist invented the Big Mac index as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level – based on the theory of purchasing-power-parity (PPP). You can read about this novel index in economic textbooks and academic journals – and I had to be familiar with the topic in my days as a student! As the Big Mac is produced locally in more than 80 countries worldwide (with only slight variations in the recipe), the Economist thought it is close to “the perfect universal commodity” to make comparisons across the world. It can also be used to compare inflation. Today, the index has become a global standard of sorts.
I like Economics (Macro more than Microeconomics), I enjoy Marketing even more. These disciplines give me an insight into the science of how businesses influence the choices we make in consumerism. One of the basic tenets of marketing is identifying your customers – and targeting them in promotions or advertisements. So the question here is, are children or adults the primary customer? The answer is both – hence marketing campaigns target them accordingly. The next time your children (grandchildren) suggest MacDonald’s, you know MacDonald has succeeded in their campaigns. MacDonald’s goes a long way to imprint their outlets as family restaurants.
To be continued in Part II – Hamburg, Beatles, and Troubles
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
