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Deep below an unassuming metro station in Hong Kong's North Point district, Romeo Leu and Leslie Bailey are dreaming up burgers and sandwiches to satisfy the cravings of 50 million McDonald's customers from Japan to South Africa.
At the Hong Kong Food Studio, opened in June at a cost of $3 million, McDonald's develops menu items like the McCurry Pan for India and the Bulgogi Burger for South Korea in a relatively modest cooking space the company calls "The Forbidden Kitchen" after China's historic Forbidden City.
One half of the kitchen is for chefs to play with ingredients and come up with ideas for products that might be sold in some of McDonald's 7600 restaurants in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The other half of the space replicates the kitchen of a typical McDonald's restaurant and is where employees test new products to see if they can be made and delivered to customers in less than 55 seconds, the fast-food chain's global standard.
During a media tour of the facility, Bailey, director of culinary development, and Leu, director of food innovation and development for McDonald's Asia business, served up menu items whose aim is to appeal to the local tastes of the consumers in different markets while still satisfying their demand for convenience.
The McCurry Pan, for instance, is a rectangular bread bowl filled with either chicken or vegetarian spicy curry. The product has been sold in McDonald's restaurants in India, where consumers shun beef, since 2003.
Japan's shrimp burger is wrapped in pink paper and features a steamed, rather than toasted, bun for a lighter flavour meant to appeal to Japanese women.
The McArabia, sold in Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa, is a seasoned chicken sandwich wrapped in flatbread.
The food studio originated as an addition to the company's "quality centre" for Asia, the Middle East and Africa. There, McDonald's staff work to make sure hamburgers maintain their consistency across each of the company's 37 markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Regularly, random samples of McDonald's products are taken from suppliers and sent to the centre, where they are put through various tests to see how they measure up to the company's standards.
Afterwards, the suppliers are given feedback on how they are doing and advice, if necessary, on how they might improve.
After all, though McDonald's woos Indian consumers with curry and Japanese customers with teriyaki burgers, at the end of the day a Big Mac has to taste the same in China as it does in Chicago.
- REUTERS
