Big Mac

The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the Greater Pittsburgh area in 1967 and nationwide in 1968. It is one of the company's flagship products.
History.
The Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti, an early Ray Kroc franchisee, who was operating several restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. It was invented in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township.
The Big Mac had two previous names, both of which failed in the marketplace: the Aristocrat, which consumers found difficult to pronounce and understand, and Blue Ribbon Burger. The third name, Big Mac, was created by Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary who worked at McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The Big Mac debuted at Delligatti's Uniontown, Pennsylvania restaurant in 1967, selling for . It was designed to compete with Big Boy Restaurants' Big Boy hamburger; Eat'n Park was the Pittsburgh area's Big Boy franchisee at the time. The Big Mac proved popular and it was added to the menu of all U.S. restaurants in 1968.
Product.
The Big Mac consists of two 1.6 oz (45.4 g) beef patties, "special sauce" (a variant of Thousand Island dressing), iceberg lettuce, American cheese, pickles, and onions, served in a three-part sesame seed bun. On October 1, 2018, McDonald's announced that it would remove all artificial preservatives, flavors, and coloring from the Big Mac.
The Big Mac is known worldwide and is often used as a symbol of American capitalism and decadence. "The Economist" has used it as a reference point for comparing the cost of living in different countries – the Big Mac Index – as it is so widely available and is comparable across markets. This index is sometimes referred to as "Burgernomics".
Special sauce.
The name "special sauce" was popularized by a 1974 advertising campaign featuring a list of the ingredients in a Big Mac.
Big Mac Sauce is delivered to McDonald's restaurants in sealed canisters designed by Sealright, from which it is meant to be directly dispensed using a special calibrated "sauce gun" that dispenses a specified amount of the sauce for each pull of the trigger.
In 2012, McDonald's executive chef Dan Coudreaut released a YouTube video revealing the recipe of the special sauce. It consists of store-bought mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard whisked together with vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika.
In 2018, McDonald's revamped the special sauce by removing potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and calcium disodium EDTA.
Packaging.
The Big Mac, along with many other McDonald's products, was first served in a collapsible cardboard container that was changed to a "clamshell" style styrofoam container in the late 1970s. Styrofoam containers were phased out beginning in 1990, due to environmental concerns.
Advertising.
The "Two all-beef patties..." slogan.
A 1974 advertising campaign featured a list of the ingredients in a Big Mac: "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun."
In 2008 McDonald's Malaysia revived the phrase. The revival includes the original prize of a free Big Mac if the customer is able to recite the phrase in under four seconds. It was released in May, along with the promotional "Mega Mac", which has four beef patties instead of two.
2005 advertising.
In 2005, McDonald's began offering product placement rewards to hip hop artists who namechecked the Big Mac in their music, giving US$5 to the artist for every time a song mentioning the hamburger was played on the radio.
2019 EUIPO trademark revocation.
McDonald's sued the Irish fast food chain Supermac's for trademark infringement and claimed the name would confuse consumers in European markets. On 11 January 2019, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) ruled in Supermac's favor in what has been called a "David vs. Goliath" victory. McDonald's submitted a copy of the Wikipedia article about the Big Mac as part of its evidence, but the court found the Wikipedia page was not acceptable as "independent evidence".
Statistics in the United States.
In 2007, Danya Proud, a McDonald's spokeswoman, said that in the United States alone, 560 million Big Macs are sold each year. It means that approximately 17 Big Macs are sold every second.
Museum.
On August 22, 2007, McDonald's opened the Big Mac Museum in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania to celebrate the Big Mac's 40th anniversary. The museum features the world's largest Big Mac statue (measuring 14 feet high and 12 feet wide) and has hundreds of historic artifacts and exhibits that celebrate the Big Mac.
Some Uniontown residents were unhappy with the selected location.
Nutritional values per geographical location.
The Big Mac is a geographically localized product. In the United States, the Big Mac has 550 kcal (2,300 kJ), 29 grams of fat and 25 grams of protein. In Australasia, the burger is slightly smaller with 493 kcal (2,060 kJ) and 26.9 grams of fat, but similar amounts of protein with 25.2 grams, while the Japanese burger tops out the scales at 557 kcal and 30.5 grams of fat. Several McDonald's subsidiaries adapt the standard features of the Big Mac (from the USA) to regional requirements.
See also.
Similar products by other restaurant chains: