“Good afternoon and welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?”
“That’ll be £2.99 please.”
“Here you go, 1 Big Mac, enjoy your meal.”
50 years of ‘The Big Mac’. The three-layered bun with a sesame-seeded crown, which stands tall, neatly assembled with overflowing green shredded lettuce, and the melted cheese that drapes over all corners.
The hamburger is McDonalds best loved and best-selling sandwich, and in 2017 the UK sold an impressive 95 million Big Macs! Enough if stacked side by side to stretch across the Atlantic to New York from London. Its incredible how many sandwiches get made by McDonalds employees a day. The Liverpool Street store holds the record as they sold 1,712 Big Mac’s in a single day. That’s one Big Mac sold every minute in the day.
Jim Delligatti, a name not known by many but the brainchild of a sandwich known around the world by billions. The creator of the Big Mac Jim was one of Ray Kroc’s earliest franchisees and operated a dozen stores across the American state Pennsylvania. He introduced the burger into the Pittsburgh market in 1967. After local success the burger went nationwide a year later and it’s never looked back.
50 years usually takes a toll on a person or an object, a bit of ware and tear and normally a lot of things can change, but not with the Big Mac. It’s still all its ever been and now more, as McDonalds have introduced a new improved version called the Grand Mac, all the same ingredients but more of what we all love. As we all know bigger is better. So when can we get a hold of this new sandwich? It hits our restaurants on February 6th for a limited time only as this new Big Mac may be a one off. Marie Shillito, Business Manager of Leeds’ biggest McDonalds Restaurant, said “Its very unlikely to become a permanent member of the McDonalds menu, it’s a promotional item which co-insides along with the Big Tasty, so you never know it may resurface again but I highly doubt it ever returning on an permanent basis.”
It’s an iconic burger and landmark as it reminds so many of their first McDonalds burger or first Big Mac. A lot of customers will remember the 1974 UK launch of the sandwich and have continued their love for it and passed that love on to future generations, but only 6% of Big Mac’s that are bought, are by younger customers aged between 16 and 25. Why is this? Is it that the Big Mac love is dying? Well what a perfect occasion for McDonalds to remind us all to what makes the Big Mac so brilliant.
The 50th anniversary has also along with the Grand Big Mac brought us another new creation of the timeless classic. The Mac Jnr is a burger orientated around introducing younger generations into the Big Mac Family, getting them familiar with that signature taste.
Many people asked how are they going to reignite people’s love for an already perfect burger, well truth is you cant improve on an icon, so instead of changing up the cheese or switching the special sauce, they have released two limited-edition new sized Mac’s, one for each member of the family.
For those of you who are yet to try the “Big Mac” let me entice you and get your taste buds going. Using the 1974 commercial which is well known for advertising the Big Mac in an eccentric way… traditional 70’s fashion, with a jingle.
“Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun.”
Doesn’t sound the same when you don’t know the jingle and rhyme so here’s my own way of attracting you into trying a Big Mac today. In true M&S 2005/2006 advert fashion…
This Sandwich stands strong on a three-tier platform holding well together under its warmth and neatly finished build, overflowing with goodness. The taste is iconic that combines a distinctive balanced blend of freshly caramelized bread taste with sesame seeds, seared, seasonal mild beef, creamy Big Mac sauce with a balance of sour, pungent mustard, sweet pickle relish, onion and savoury tastes, lettuce, creamy cheddar cheese, with isolated acidic bite from the dill pickle and mild onion which adds the occasional crispness to the soft juicy tender burger.
The Big Mac although within itself has not changed over its 50-year life, Paul Lonsdale, 36 of Broadlea Terrace, Bramley explains how the sandwich has changed in his 36-year life and 20 years service within the company that continues to serve the iconic burger to millions of fans worldwide.
Paul’s journey started when he was just a young lad coming straight out of school and into the heated McDonalds kitchen as a crewmember back in 1997 at the Bradford Lane Ends store. Most teenagers coming out of school getting a job at McDonalds is like a dream, like lets be honest can you name anything better than free McDonalds? Free Big Mac’s… erm yes please. Not only do you get to eat McDonalds every shift you get to learn about what makes this globalized company tick on a day to day basis.
Paul’s first ‘run’ in McDonalds terminology or batch of burgers to the unknowns, was 4 Big Mac’s to which he remembers well, he explained his first experience to be not his best Mac’s. Paul said: “My first day in work didn’t start great as I forgot to bring my little piece of paper which had my clock in number on, so I couldn’t clock in, it wasn’t the best first impression but I was told its not the first time.”
“Already a nervous wreck I was thrown into the Kitchen, which is split into two- chicken side and grill side.”
“I got threw on grill side with my Trainer Olly, a nice a lad to be fair, got on with him well, got me involved with the banter and looked after me to say the least but what he did not help me with was the treacherous Mac Toaster, a mechanical death trap.”
“So my first McDonalds burger was a Big Mac, the signature burger something that had to be built with precision and accuracy as well as quick to then be passed to the kitchen manager Sean for quality checking.”
“My heart was racing, the intensity was crazy the atmosphere was serious but humorous, a weird animosity spiraled through as this tight space seemed to be closing in as more and more members of the team clocked in, ready for the Saturday tea time rush.”
“I’m back at the toasters ready for my next run when Sean approached me and told me that they were ‘class’ Mac’s and that I should be proud, and I was but I still hated that toaster, the amount of burns it gave me, and the noise it made, the screeching haunts me to this day.”
20 years on Paul is a 1st Assistant manager at Leeds busiest store and has ambitions to climb higher and higher, his next goal is to become a Business Manager. He says sales of the new Big Mac family have seen an increase against last year and projections have been beaten, the biggest seller being the Grand Mac, which has caught the customer’s attention and needs it seems. He has been around long enough to witnessed 5 out of the 6 Big Mac boxes ever produced from the very early days of the old ‘clamshell’ Styrofoam containers before the new collapsible cardboard boxes were introduced.
Although Paul stating he’s a ‘chicken boy ‘and always has been he remembers his first Big Mac well. Back in 1993 at his friends birthday party in the Bradford City Centre store. Paul’s favourite item to appear on the McDonalds menu in his 20-year tenure is the McRib, on its first and premier visit to the UK and said “the latest McRib in 2014 has nothing on the original.” His worst burger was a promotional burger launched in 2002 based on an Indian cuisine and he stated it was “possibly the worst concoction of tastes and flavours on a burger ever.”
Its no secret that The Big Mac has become the worlds favourite burger, and an overnight phenomenon all because a small time franchisee, Jim Delligatti changed the hamburger industry with one great idea. Its not just one burger, its a lot more than what meets the eye, its more than just “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun”… its became a never ending world wide craze. 
Here’s some pub quiz trivia that once you know you’ll never forget:
1. One man took loving the sandwich to another level, Mr Gorske has ate over 29,000 Big Mac’s in his lifetime. He’s only 64. That’s over 1.2 Big Mac’s a day since the day he was born. Donald Gorske is a Wisconsin-native, US citizen and became an author in 2005 with ‘Mac Daddy’ and he later released ‘22,477 Big Macs’ ten years ago.
2. In a 2005 advertisement campaign McDonalds wanted Rappers and Hip-Hop artists to promote the fast food chain. In exchange for giving the chain a shout-out the artists would receive five dollars every time a ‘Maccie D’s’ shout was played on the radio.
3. Every city has a museum, but not every city has its very own Big Mac museum. Opened in 2007, by Mike Delligattii (the son of Mac inventor Jim Delligatti) it’s been every Mac lover’s dream to pay a visit to the Big Mac museum in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. It houses a 14ft by 12ft Big Mac, the worlds biggest Mac and also serves as a McDonalds restaurant too, it’s definitely something to add to your bucket list.
4. The Big Mac is “arguably the world’s most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast food item” according to The Economist magazine. They formulated a tool in 1986 that easily translates international currency exchange by comparing the average price of a Big Mac in each country. Welcome to Burgernomics.
5. 50 years ago in 1968 it become a permanent item on every McDonalds in America and was responsible for 19% of sales.
6. How many versions of the Big Mac do you think there are in the world? You would think one. There is over 9 variations of the sandwich, here’s a taste of what’s out there:
• The McKinley Mac: The Alaskan only version of our very own is two-quarter pounder patties instead of our 1.6oz patties, now that’s what I call a ‘Big’ Mac.
• Maharaja Mac: A substitution of chicken for our beef patties, available in India.
• Kosher Big Mac: Just a small change of taking way the cheese in Israel.
• The Mega Mac: Not two but four 1.6oz patties and some extra cheese to compensate. Available in Australia, Canada, China, Thailand and more Asian countries.
• The Monster Mac: This is no joke but no fewer than eight patties and some much needed extra cheese to help tame the monster that this Big Mac is, once available throughout Germany this monster has been discontinued.
7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was temporarily renamed ‘Big Mac’ in honour of its 25th anniversary.
8. In 1974 the Big Mac Jingle was created in the US and ten years later the melody hit the UK airwaves.
9. The ‘Special Sauce’ is delivered to every McDonalds restaurant in a ready-made sauce tube but how does the condiment get on our burgers? With exactly two shots from McDonalds’ very own custom ‘Sauce guns’, that precisely shoots 20ml of big mac sauce onto each burger. Two measured shots of 10ml give the sandwich its unique taste.
10. Mayo, sweet relish, yellow mustard, vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. Doesn’t sound appealing does it, this concoction of ingredients is what makes the ‘Special Sauce” so special! Unlike no other sauce at the time, it took the fast food giants nearly 45 years to unveil the secret ingredients. So there it is, in 7 simple ingredients you could make your own ‘Special Sauce’, all you need now is to get your hands on one of those Sauce Guns.
Chris Dow Journalist 