# Venezuela’s McDonald's has stopped selling Big Macs  **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635 "2016-07-22T23:26:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/1 "2016-07-22T23:26:40Z")
I don’t quite understand this story. Doesn’t McDonalds have a global distribution supply network? Franchises don’t buy hamburger buns at a local bakery? Or hamburger from the local meat packer? do they? I was under the impression all the Franchise supplies were shipped in? So every McDonalds burger is the same everywhere. Anyway, a place famous for its vaqueros and ranches can’t get a Big Mac. At least for awhile. [https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-venezuela-stopped-selling-big-macs-132716439.html?nhp=1](https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-venezuela-stopped-selling-big-macs-132716439.html?nhp=1) > [@](#): > > due to food shortages within the country. The franchisee said that there are not enough supplies to make the iconic sandwich, which requires three pieces of bread. > > The franchisee, Buenos Aires–based Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc., told Bloomberg that the situation was “temporary.” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/2 "2016-07-22T23:30:28Z")
McD’s sources as much as possible from local providers. Shipping hamburger buns transcontinentally is a non-starter. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/3 "2016-07-22T23:31:22Z")
Of course they source ingredients locally. You’re selling burgers for a dollar, why the hell would you ship pre-baked buns halfway around the world? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/4 "2016-07-22T23:35:37Z")
McDonald’s has potato farmers growing their special spuds all over the planet. If you shipped frozen fries from the States, a small order of fries would cost 300 pesos in Bariloche. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/5 "2016-07-22T23:40:04Z")
McDonalds is always being accused of using artificial foods. 5 year old burgers that never mold or decay. I don’t think you going to get buns like that from a local bakery. McDonald’s wants the exact recipe used. So their product is the same everywhere. The old mom and pop burger places bought everything from local distributors. I thought that drastically changed with the Corporate fast food industry? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/6 "2016-07-22T23:43:46Z")
I guess every country has a McDonald’s distribution supply network. I thought they could easily get supplies from the next closest distributor. Where ever that might be. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/7 "2016-07-22T23:46:15Z")
**Ace, ace, ace** …please look up the term “contract baking.” If there is any essential ingredient in McD’s food, they provide it. Then the local bakery bakes it. As for the rather mistaken idea that their food has some hidden power to resist mold or spoilage, I’m afraid you’ve been smoking your running socks again. McD’s has also been accused of witchcraft, buggery and who knows what else. Doesn’t mean a lick of it is true. eta: As for shipping supplies in from another country, look up “nick of time” supply chains. It’s not like the Chilean distribution network has a whole countries worth of extra food lying around. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/8 "2016-07-22T23:46:55Z")
Although, oddly enough, McDonalds Japan’s french fries are all [imported from the US](http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mcdonalds-rations-fries-japan-amid-u-s-port-strike-n269236). I get that Japan is an island nation and it might not be economical to use Japanese potatoes in french fries but why they don’t just use McDonalds China french fries or McDonalds Korea french fries is a mystery to me. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/9 "2016-07-22T23:49:49Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I guess every country has a McDonald’s distribution supply network. > > I thought they could easily get supplies from the next closest distributor. Where ever that might be. Lack of access to hard currency would be my guess. Nobody in surrounding countries wants any bolivars due to rampant inflation and it’s all but impossible to exchange them for US Dollars due to currency controls. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/10 "2016-07-22T23:55:01Z")
There are old burgers that never decay. Heres one from 1999. > **[WATCH: McDonald's Burger From 1999 Almost Looks New](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worlds-oldest-hamburger-mcdonalds_n_3139231)** > > WATCH: McDonald's Burger From 1999 Almost Looks New I thought Fast Food franchises used a sophisticated distribution network just like Walmart or any other global conglomerate. I’ve seen Tractor trailers unloading supplies at McDonald’s. Guess I learned something again. My hamburger buns was baked locally. Lesson learned. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/11 "2016-07-23T00:02:27Z")
The reason you see semi trailers unloading stuff at McD’s is more due to the fact that there are likely a gazillion franchises in that area as opposed to the food was trucked in from Winnetka. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/12 "2016-07-23T00:18:36Z")
McDonalds burger patties contain ground beef and salt. Why would they waste money on expensive preservatives? The patties are preserved before serving by a mysterious process known as “freezing”. They get cooked, and then sold, and if they aren’t sold within an hour or so they get dumped in the trash. It’s not like McDonalds is selling food that might sit on a pantry shelf for years before being eaten, like a Twinkie. Frozen food arrives, gets cooked, and then sold or thrown out, they don’t keep old burgers for years in the back room hoping to sell them someday. As for decades old hamburger patties, if you dry out a thin meat patty how can it rot? Rotting requires bacteria, and bacteria need moisture… This process of preserving meat goes back tens of thousands of years. The scary mysterious chemical that preserves flesh for years? Sodium Chloride. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/13 "2016-07-23T00:32:17Z")
my relative works for glassos bread bakery one of the top 10 in southern ca and they merged with a place called fresh start a bakery whos sole original purpose was to provide mcds with English muffins and they moved on to the sandwich buns … Although I think all the meat they use is American because the corp that owned all the mcds in Iceland dropped the franchsement and signed up with a local place because the recession made shipping meat to Iceland unsustainable… that’s why theres no Iceland mcds anymore… ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/14 "2016-07-23T00:55:12Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > There are old burgers that never decay. Heres one from 1999. > [World's Oldest Hamburger? McDonald's Burger From 1999 Almost Looks New (VIDEO) | HuffPost Life](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3139231.html) > > I thought Fast Food franchises used a sophisticated distribution network just like Walmart or any other global conglomerate. I’ve seen Tractor trailers unloading supplies at McDonald’s. > > Guess I learned something again. My hamburger buns was baked locally. > > Lesson learned. They do. Most likely the french fries here in NY aren’t made from local potatoes. It’s not a local cash crop that could handle a McD’s type order. New York also doesn’t produce enough steers to satisfy McD’s, or grow enough wheat for all the McD’s buns being baked. But then those buns are baked, in bulk, and shipped to the 16 million franchise operators. Baked locally doesn’t mean at the bakery down the block where you buy your baguettes. It means at a commercial high-production bakery. Locally might be 100 or 200 miles away, but not transcontinental. When a company like McD’s works internationally, they also have to be cognizant of local tastes, and local laws regarding the importation of food. I could, but I’m not going to, look up Venezuela’s laws on importing wheat and beef. Are there tariffs that make it cheaper to source locally? Finally, to back up Lemur866, [The Food Lab: Here’s Why McDonald’s Burgers Don’t Rot](http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/the-food-lab-why-mcdonalds-burgers-never-rot.html). Science really could be your friend if you let it. > [@](#): > > So the next time you see one of those burgers-that-don’t-rot photos, maybe think twice about hitting the drive-thru, but think thrice before hitting that “share” button. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/15 "2016-07-23T01:00:38Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/16 "2016-07-23T01:01:17Z")
the book fast food nation is very good. It covers the history of fast food in America and how they run their business. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/17 "2016-07-23T02:50:01Z")
Also, even if McDonalds shipped all its burgers from a central Burger Depository in Kansas, the individual franchisees would still need to buy them from the parent company. And if nobody has any money in Venezuela, that would include the Venezuelan McDonalds franchisees. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/18 "2016-07-23T02:55:42Z")
Thank you for informing me. I had jumbled up other Global Corporate Business practices with fast food. Venezuela used to be known for its beef and agricultural products. They screwed up by focusing their economy on Oil exports. It’s never a good thing to rely on importing your food. They’re paying the price now. > **[Agriculture in Venezuela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Venezuela)** > > Agriculture in Venezuela has a much smaller share of the economy than in any other Latin American country. After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in the early 20th century to the 1940s, agriculture has declined rapidly, and with the beginning of large-scale industrial development in the 1940s, agriculture and land reform was largely neglected by successive governments (although a 1960 land reform law did see 200,000 families receive land, largely in the early 1960s). Since 1999, under the Bol... > [@](#): > > As late as the 1930s, agriculture still provided 22 percent of GDP and occupied 60 percent of the labor force. As the petrochemical industry expanded rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the proportion of the labor force in agriculture dropped from one-fifth to about one-tenth. By 1988 agriculture contributed only 5.9 percent of GDP, employed 13 percent of the labor force, and furnished barely 1 percent of total exports. Agriculture has continued to decline, accounting for about 5 percent of GDP and 10 percent of employment in 2004. > [@](#): > > State intervention has seriously damaged the agricultural sector, and Venezuela imports most of its food. There are persistent shortages of common foodstuffs. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/19 "2016-07-23T14:46:50Z")
When McDonald’s first opened in Russia (January 1990), a lot of the stuff had to be imported from Germany, the nearest big supplier. (The cheese especially was distinctly European.) Nowadays, pretty much everything that can be provided locally comes from old Soviet state farms that have been rededicated to producing McDonald’s food. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635/20 "2016-07-23T14:53:21Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Venezuela used to be known for its beef and agricultural products. They screwed up by focusing their economy on Oil exports. **It’s never a good thing to rely on importing your food.** They’re paying the price now. > > [Agriculture in Venezuela - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Venezuela) You got that right. If your economy shifts from a net exporter of food to a net importer of same, you got trouble. Could be a little, could be a lot. But definitely trouble. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-s-mcdonalds-has-stopped-selling-big-macs/760635.md?page=2)