A question for someone who works(or worked) in fast food?

Question

What parts of the food making in fast food is mechanized? What parts of it don't require any acquired skill? I assume it would be most of it, but I was wondering if anyone out there could give me some examples. Like a friend of mine used to work at McDonalds and said that the pancake batter is distributed so that they will be exactly the same every time.

Any similar examples would be so much appreciated. I'm working on a paper on the Industrial Revolution and doing a compare of the factory machines then to fast food today.

Thanks :)

Answer 1

You should really do your paper on the mechanization of factory farms.  After all the animal that is killed for fast food comes from these industrialized farms.

Answer 2

To keep up with consistency between franchises in most fast food chains, a high level of repetitive and mechanized operations are necessary.  This includes everything from the prep of the food (which in fast food, is mostly opening sealed bags or rinsing/washing goods).  With McDonalds, I can tell you the only FRESH produce that is actually prepared are the tomato's, which come in whole and are sliced on what's called a "mandolin".  The minced onions come in dried and are soaked to "puff up", the diced onions (on 1/4 pounders) come in as such, pickels are bagged, lettuce is pre-shredded, mustard and ketchup go into special dispensers which squeeze out exactly the correct amount specified for the burger, even the sauce guns (Big Mac sauce, BBQ, mayo, etc) are set to different levels to dispense the correct amount.

Very little ingenuity or option is left for the end user (grill/line cook) to perform, it's all automated.

Answer 3

My first college roomate worked at Arbys.

That roast beef comes in a big dehydrated chunk..they then put it in a bucket of water to rehydrate it, put it in the roaster and then in the slicer. It is totally processed meat.

I think it requires zero skill at all.

I know working at Subway can be difficult because you have to slice the bread and assemble the sandwhiches which can be tricky.

Answer 4

Taco Bell's meat all come in bags. We then put the bags in a thermalizer to cook.

The beans are "add water".

The fiesta salsa is hand prepared and requires the most skill to make. You have to chop up cilantro.  -__-

Cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions are ready to use for us.