Evolution of the Fast Food Industry

Group members: Brandon Cheung, Victor Zhu, Tiffany Chen, Jay Dubashi

For our final project, we researched the evolution of the fast food industry and how it was popularized through American and eventually offshored to other countries throughout the 1970s and 80s, up to 1990. We investigated three different fast food chains and how each of them rose to prosperity and evolves over time to appeal to various customers, from little children to adults.

We chose three main sets of items:

-a hamburger filled with a timeline, old ads, and photographs of old restaurants

-maps that show the store locations worldwide comparing the 1970 locations to the 1990 locations

-various slogans used throughout the 1970s and 80s to attract a wide group of customers

These items not only give good depth and spread over the information that they present, but they also compliment each other and walk hand in hand with the theme. The hamburgers give technical facts and show past restaurants and ads, displaying which groups the restaurants appealed to (mostly adults) and allowing for comparison to today’s main focus of ads (children). It also directly states the evolution of the fast food industries, including where and when they went, and what was added to the menus. The slogans, on the flip side, also supplement by showing the changing perspective of advertisements these restaurants underwent, showing how they slowly moved from the primary consumer of an adult to that of younger individuals. Their slogans expressed both tasty food and speed, but where some went for convenience to appeal for adults (We do it for you, McDonald’s), others went for the “fun” approach for kids (a barrel of chicken, a barrel of fun, KFC)

The source of these found art items was mostly through the internet. Some items, such as the maps and ads, were pulled from the websites. Others, like the timelines and slogans were pulled from local restaurants which sported their chain’s past and present, giving us an idea of the evolution of both food and advertisement.

If I were to redo this project, I would probably start earlier and work for a bigger box, one that more closely resembles a happy meal. I would also try for physical found art items, such as KFC buckets or Wendy’s and McDonald’s wrappers that could be used as additional decorations.

Next year’s students should research something they’re interested in! One of the biggest advantages in doing this topic was that we were curious about the origins of fast food and to see how they really became the dominant American food in less than 40 years. Curiosity spurred motivation, allowing us to get the project done effectively and put our best foot forward.