My Wall Street Journal Research was conducted on the fast-food industry, including restaurants like McDonald's, Subway, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Panera Bread Co., and Arby's.  My research includes 14 articles from the Wall Street Journal pertaining to the fast-food industry from December 17, 2002 to February 25, 2002.
 

*The Following articles have been put in order from 1-14, with 1 being the most interesting and informative and 14 the least interesting and informative.
 

1. Leung, Shirley, "Fast-Food Chains Vie To Carve Out Empire In Pricey Sandwiches," The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2002: A1; A10.

The trend in the fast-food industry has fallen away from the 99-cent item on the menus.  Lately, small restaurants have begun to invest in upscale sandwiches.  These smaller restaurants have begun the trend that many Americans are catching on to.  They offer many different types of high-priced sandwiches rather than the normal burger and fries.

"There's an opportunity... to elevate the experience of eating a sandwich."                 Howard Schultz

Some examples of the small restaurants that are quickly building up their reputation are Cosi and Briazz, Corner Bakery Cafe, and Panera Bread Co.  All of these restaurants have had great success thus far and are really catching the eyes of many on Wall Street and several others.  They really seem to be pioneering a market for a new type of made-to-order sandwich, just as Starbucks did with coffee. 

Even some big named fast-food restaurants have begun to catch on to the trend and rethink their strategies.  For example, Arby's has recently input a new line of "Market Fresh" sandwiches that are served on fresh bread and not bun and that cost about $4 a piece.   "There's an opportunity... to elevate the experience of eating a sandwich," says Starbucks founder and Chairman Howard Schultz. 
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2. Leung, Shirley, "Subway Surpasses McDonald's In Number of U.S. Restaurants," The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2002.

Just recently as of December 31, 2001 Subway became the largest restaurant chain in the U.S. by number of stores, surpassing McDonald's by 148 stores.  Subway now operates 13, 247 stores in the U.S.  "We should be gloating a bit," said Annie Smith, a spokesperson for Subway.  "Our size doesn't begin to approach the global bigness of McDonald's, but it still feels pretty darn good to beat them on their home turf."

Subway was founded by Fred Deluca in 1965 and is based in Milford, Conn.  Subway recently had a recently has had a resurgence in sales due to a famous advertising campaign that started in 1999.  The campaign featured a real man named Jared who claimed he lost over 240 pounds eating Subway sandwiches.
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3. Leung, Shirley, "Wendy's Sees Its Future Growth in Acquisitions, Joint Ventures,"  The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2002.

As Wendy's International Inc. looks into its future ten years from now, they see no more room in North America for new stores of their hamburger chain.  Wendy's realizes that they must grow in the type and items they serve to customers.  Although any new concepts they come up with will not be able to compete with Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers Franchises.

Wendy's is looking into several new concepts and formats of serving fast-food that include casual dining to "fast casual," which is the concept of offering higher quality food without the table service.  Although many wonder if and how well a fast-food company can run other type of concepts, because they have been doing the same thing for such a long time.  Wendy's has had success in the opening of Tim Hortons, a promising doughnut chain, that has given them hope on future experiments with new concepts of fast-food.
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4. Carroll, Jill and Leung, Shirley, "U.S. Consumption of French Fries Is Sliding as Diners Opt for Healthy," The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2002.

For almost all of the 1990's the consumption of french fries increased tremendously.  After about a decade of incredible growth the consumption of french fries is expected to drop.  After the next fiscal year ends on June 30, 2002 the consumption is to drop almost 1%.  The result of this drop is a french fry overabundance all throughout America.

The number of fries that Americans eat is still extremely high (about 28 pounds per person every year), but consumption has "grown so much for so long it' getting to the point where how much more can each person eat?" said Charles Plummer, the USDA's potato specialist.  One of the big factors is the decline in expansion of the fast-food industry which sells about 90% of the fries.  Another main problem is the fact that Subway, who doesn't sell fries,  now has more restaurants in the U.S. than McDonald's who is very well known for its fries. 
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5. Leung, Shirley, "McDonald's Hires Mystery Eaters To Find Out What Ails Food Sales," The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2001.

McDonald's Corp. latest try for a turnaround is the hiring of mystery eaters to survey the experience and service they have while eating at McDonald's.  McDonald's profit has decreased over the last four quarters and are expected to decline again for the fifth quarter in a row.  The decline is due to the weak world economy and the abnormal charges of almost $245 million due to its Monopoly game fraud scandal.

Jack Greenberg (McDonald's CEO) has hired more than 150,000 mystery eaters to use a single set of standards to evaluate service, food quality, and cleanliness of more than 13,000 stores across the nation.  The Wall Street Journal hired its own mystery eaters to visit 25 different McDonald's to test the same things.  McDonald's faired pretty well with an overall score of 81.9% compared to Burger King's score of 80.1%.
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6. Leung, Shirley, "Tricon Raises 2002 Earnings Outlook On Higher Sales and      Multi- Branding," The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2002.

Just recently Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. increased its expectations for 2002 based on the strength of U.S. same store sales and multi-branding of restaurants.  According to Chief Financial Officer Dave Deno the first quarter is unusually strong.  He says "the best indication... is that U.S. blended same-store sales is going to be up 4%." 

The U.S. sales of stores that have been open more than one year went up 3% compared to going down 3% the year before, according to fourth quarter statistics.  Taco Bell had the most increase with a rise of 8%, followed by KFC at a rise of 7%, and Pizza Hut had a decline of 5%.  Tricon claims that the expected same-store sales for 2002 will grow at least 2% and U.S. revenues to grow 3%.
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7. Leung, Shirley, "McDonald's Profit Sinks 40%, Weakened By Global Slump,"  The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2002.
 

McDonald's has reported a net loss for the fourth quarter by 40% making this the fifth consecutive quarter that McDonald's has reported a loss.  McDonald's, which is the world's largest restaurant chain, said it earned only $271.9 million compared to last year's $452 million.  People on Wall Street have noticed the drastic drop in the stock prices of McDonald's.

A few of the main factors in McDonald's profit dropping so drastically is the weakened world economy, the new fears of a mad-cow disease, and the Monopoly Game scandal in which McDonald's lost $171.5 million.  One of the efforts to boast sales taken by CEO Jack Greenberg was the hiring of 150,00 mystery eaters, which was reported in one of the articles above.  So far many of the stores are increasing the overall quality of their performance and customer service which should help McDonald's in the long run.
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8.  Zimmerman, Rachel, "B.B. King's Mixed Messages Give Some Fans the Blues," The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2002.
 

Over the past years B.B. King, a famous Blues singer, has made several ad campaigns for several different companies.  One of the main campaigns he has been working on has been a sales pitch for diabetes products, but at the same time he has been promoting the latest sandwiches from Burger King.  The sandwich he is promoting is the new "KIng Supreme," which is a very high in cholesterol and high in sodium.

Since B.B. King has a mixture of ads going on at the same time, his fans are getting pretty confused with what Mr. King actually means.  In Mr. King's 1996 autobiography he stated that he went 10 years without eating meat because of a TV show he saw about the slaughter of chickens.  When it comes down to it, the main reason that Mr. King would ever do a Burger King commercial is straight down to the money.  I mean who would turn down millions of dollars for about two hours of work?
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9.  Zimmerman, Rachel, "Australian Outlets of McDonald's Get Suspicious Letters," The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2002.
 

Australian Police have reported that more than 30 Australian outlets of McDonald's have received suspicious letters in which some contain white powder.  Australia's largest city, Sydney, was the main target.  All of the letters were addressed to the manager of the store and many were given treatment after opening the envelope. 

Currently, police have no suspects for this case and aren't positive if the white powder is anthrax or if it is just a prank.  The letters have been taken for forensic testing and the results should be released within a week.  One officer said that there were hundreds of anthrax hoaxes and scares in Australia late last year, so this very well could be another one.
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10.  Vranica, Suzanne, "Mad Cow Scare Hits Japan's Fast-Food Industry," The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2002.
 

Ever since early September 2001, when the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed, beef has become suspect in the minds of many burger eaters.  This mad cow scare has come at the expense of McDonald's because it occurred at the plant in which it buys its meat.  Since the scare, the entire companies sales have decreased and so has the meat plant's. 

The mad cow disease is formally known as bovine spongform encephalopathy (BSE), and is believed to be caused by proteins gone wrong, but scientists aren't sure how the disease is contracted.  There have been a total of four different cases that have been confirmed and many in Japan believe that there is still more to come.  Japan's beef industry already faces billions of yen or tens of millions of dollars in losses due to this mad cow disease.
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11. Armstrong, David, "Olympic Torchbearer: an Honor Reserved for the Worthy--Mostly," The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2002.
 

As the Olympic torch travels across the country, 11,500 different people will carry it across 46 states until it reaches the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The torchbearers are chosen in a contest of nominations that are judged on the basis of how much nominee personified the Olympic spirit, inspired others to great achievement, and had overcome adversity. 

These people filled 7,200 of the torch bearing spots and the other 4,300 spots were divvied up between the major sponsors of the torch carrying.  Coca-Cola Co. was one of these companies and it decided to use 700 of its slots to reward its customers including McDonald's and Burger King.  McDonald's and Burger King then rewarded some of its slots to its deserving and hard-working employees throughout the U.S. 
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12.  Leung, Shirley, "McDonald's Chief of U.S. Operations, Alan Feldman, Resigns From Chain," The Wall Street Journal, January 22, 2002.
 

Alan Feldman, the Chief of U.S., Canada, and Latin American operations, recently decided to resign from McDonald's to pursue other opportunities.  McDonald's considered Feldman one of the top candidates to someday replace Chairman and Chief Executive Jack Greenberg.  Feldman was formally the chief financial officer of Pizza Hut before he decided to join McDonald's in 1994.

Feldman was promoted to his position in 1998 and over the past couple of years McDonald's hasn't been able to increase U.S. sales at stores that have been open for more than one year.  Peter Oakes, a restaurant analyst for Merrill Lynch, said that Feldman's departure was probably more due to his personal ambition than the performance of the company.  Oakes also mentioned that Feldman's departure probably isn't a sign for worse to come in the future for McDonald's.  Feldman's resignation followed several other executive's from McDonald's in the recent past.
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13.  Alsop, Ronald, "For a Company, Charitable Works Are Best Carried Out Discreetly," The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2002.
 

Since the tragedy of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, our country has shown great compassion and has come together to help those in need.  Almost every large corporation has put together some sort of collection for the victims of September 11th.  Many companies have raised millions and millions of dollars along with donating millions of dollars also.  One example of this is the TV coverage of rescue workers at the World Trade Center receiving free boxes of chicken nuggets from McDonald's. 

The question that arises from this type of charitable work, is whether the company is really doing it out of goodwill or just to try and boast their sales?  In a survey taken of over 21,000 people, the general consensus that people get when they see this is that they are doing it because there must be something in it for their company.  People also seem to think that the companies are taking advantage of the tragedy to promote itself.  With all this taken in, many companies would be better off carrying their charitable works in a discreet manner.
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14.  Vranica, Suzanne, "Companies Hope Super Bowl Ads Will Draw Eyes to New Products," The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2002.
 

These days the advertisements during the Super Bowl, seem to be just as important and viewed just as much, as the game it self.  Companies pay millions and millions of dollars for 30 second time slot during the Super Bowl.  The pay this insane amount of money because they know that people pay just as much attention to the commercials as they do the game.  These companies also realize the amount of people that their ads can reach.  "People watch the commercials as much as they watch the game," says Debbie Meyers, vice president of media services at Taco Bell.

During Super Bowl XXXVI, there will be a variety of advertisements including both well known brands along with some newcomers that will spend their money advertising on Super Bowl Sunday.  Taco Bell one of the well known brands purchased a Super Bowl slot for a 30 second ad.  This will be the first time Taco Bell has advertised during the Super Bowl in over 4 years.  The commercial highlights the Mexican fast-food chain's new steak quesadilla.
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