PEST: Technological and Socio-Cultural

A food scientist at Indiana’s Purdue University has created a “radiant fryer” that results in fried food with all the flavour, but up to half the fat and fewer calories. Foods sold at fast-food restaurants are first partially cooked at a factory and quickly frozen. Then restaurant workers typically use an oil immersion fryer to finish the process. Which is extremely unhealthy. But the "radiant fryer" does not require oil to finish off the process, which results in 30-50% less oil. This affects my company because this technological advance can help McDonalds reduce the amount of oil they use, which not only can slightly enhance its image of promoting a healthy lifestyle but also reduce its production cost. Statistics have shown that there is a rare decline in McDonalds sales recently, and this may be due to McDonalds losing its customers. There can be a lot of reasons for that, but one of them may be that they are now more aware of health issues. The US has the most McDonalds restaurans in the world (18,590) and facts have shown that customers are indeed choosing to eat more healthy there now. Over 5 years ago, over 25% of Americans eat McDonalds or consume fast food everyday but now it dropped to 6%. This radiant fryer may help McDonalds win these customers back with the reduced amount of oil used to produce their food. But, the people who choose to eat at McDonalds may already be well aware that its unhealthy and not care about the health related issues, also McDonalds already projects a strong image of unhealthy and low quality materials. Therefore, this PEST factor may have a minimal impact.

Link to article:

http://www.foodstuffsa.co.za/news-stuff/food-science-and-technology-stuff/2537-purdue-technology-can-fry-food-with-minimal-oil