McDonald's

US fast-food chain, the largest in the world, specializing in hamburgers. The company operates or franchises restaurants offering a substantially uniform menu in more than 120 countries employing around 465,000 people (as of 2008).

The company has been criticized by environmentalists for uneconomic grazing land use (see meat) and for contributing to the global waste problem and the greenhouse effect through its packaging. It has also come under pressure over the nutritional value of its fare, prompting the introduction of several healthier menu options.

The empire began as one restaurant in San Bernardino, California, owned by two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald. It sold hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, soft drinks, and milk shakes at low prices. Rac Kroc (1902–1984) encountered the restaurant in 1954 when he was working as a food-mixer salesman, and proposed and managed a plan to open franchised restaurants around the USA. The original owners sold the company to him in 1961 for US$2.7 million. By 1963 over 1 billion hamburgers had been sold. That same year, the 500th McDonald's restaurant opened and its clown mascot Ronald McDonald made his debut.

From the mid-1980s, the company embarked on a 20-year legal battle (including the longest-running court action in English history) with two British environmental campaigners who claimed that McDonald's sold unhealthy food, exploited workers and children, and damaged the environment. Although the company was vindicated in the English courts, the drawn-out litigation and subsequent criticisms of the case in favour of the campaigners by the European Court of Human Rights became a serious public relations embarrassment.