David Sinclair, ILC’s Chief Executive, looks back on his teenage years and at how McDonald’s is changing for the better.

A Saturday night during my teenage years frequently involved an hour on a slow, stopping bus, traveling through small Welsh towns to Chester for an early evening cinema showing. We did some window shopping in the HMV before watching films like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Wayne’s World.

I remember it always being cold and dark when we came out, and the brightly lit McDonald’s was the obvious place for food. It was safe and relatively cheap. There was a clean toilet, and it was located between the cinema and the bus stop. The busses only went once an hour, so it was a warm place to sit.

McDonald’s was one of the few places we could go by ourselves and with friends. We were too young to go to pubs. There were no coffee shops open and certainly no Leon or healthy food chains. The only other places teenagers would have gone would have been Pizza Hut but that was much more expensive and reserved for family birthday parties.

McDonald’s has successfully managed to take customers of my age with them through their lives. A number of online sources describe the average McDonald’s customer as “a married woman aged 41 to 56”. It’s not teenagers.

Which partly explains re-launch of the McDonalds McRib in the UK last month. From an older consumer point of view McDonald’s know what they are doing. The McRib was introduced in 1981 and has re-emerged a few times since then.  The people who remember the McRib best were in their teens and 20s in the 1980s and 1990s. They are in their 40s and 50s today.

McDonald’s in Spain recently launched a “Friends” themed happy meal targeted at adults. While there has been a resurgence of interest in “Friends” among younger people, women (and some men) aged between 40 and 60 today watched “Friends” when it first came out. Unsurprisingly adults like collecting things too.  And they love nostalgia. I fondly remember those cinema trips to Chester and was even then a little jealous of the younger kids who got a free gift with their meal.

But it’s not just about the marketing or nostalgia. McDonald’s recognised the value of older workers a long time before think-tanks like us were talking about it. They have a relatively high number of staff aged 60 and older and have supported research which highlights that customers like older workers, and that productivity is highest and employees are happier when working in an intergenerational workforce. Every few years McDonald’s run campaigns and partnerships in different countries and regions to recruit older workers.

McDonald’s are ripe for criticism. We know too much red meat is bad for us and we know that we have a huge obesity problem. It’s not for us to defend McDonalds but in Europe at least, they have sought to respond to the criticism with a stronger focus on quality of jobs and food launching a Plan for Change in 2021. Regulators in Europe have helped.

According to McDonald’s’ website between 2020 and 2023 the company removed 150 tonnes of fat, 18.8 tonnes of saturated fat, 34.9 tonnes of salt, 2,672 tonnes of sugar and 11.8 billion calories from their menu. And as of 2023, 57% of McDonald’s menu is classified as not high in fat, salt or sugar. The Daily Mail recently ran a story highlighting that McDonald’s food in the US is higher in fat, sugar, carbs, and sodium than in the UK. As the UK Government ponders more “nanny state” initiatives they should take comfort from the fact that having healthier fast food is very popular.

Older consumers are responsible for around one third of all spending. That McDonald’s gets it is a reason for optimism.

If you are interested in talking to ILC about how businesses are and should be adapting to long lives, get in touch with David Sinclair. We will be organising a short event on the topic for businesses early in the new year.