What’s your relationship to fast food chains?
A typical Tim Hortons store sign, known across Canada. Photo: Creative Commons, some rights reserved
The big news in the fast food business today is Burger King’s purchase of Tim Hortons for $11.4 billion.
The deal would create the world’s third-largest fast-food chain, with 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries.
The new group would have a market capitalisation of about $18bn and annual sales in the region of $23bn.
Burger King’s majority shareholder, 3G Capital, will own about 51% of the merged company.
Analysts have much to say about the deal in terms of market share, stock price and long-term impact. Customers may mostly be wondering if their usual menu is going to get shaken up.
Interest on this runs especially high in Canada because Tim Hortons is a beloved institution to a degree not seen at all in the U.S.
I am generalizing, of course. Not everyone loves Timmy’s. But Tim Hortons commands what I’ll call Canada’s public space in terms of grabbing a coffee or a quick bite. In place after place across Canada that is where people gather and cross paths, from all walks of life.
Hence the news has many Canadians wondering – no worrying – what it may mean, as shown in this coverage from CBC:
…what’s at stake for the Canadian icon?
“Tim’s won’t die because of foreign ownership, they’ll die because foreign ownership will bring forth … death by a thousand cuts,” says Alan Middleton, executive director of York University’s Schulich Executive Education Centre.
In a joint press release, the two entities reassured customers that they’d continue to operate “as standalone brands,” promising to preserve each companies’ “iconic brands.”
But such early day promises don’t always last.
While this announcement has its own resonance for investors and the business landscape of fast food outlets, I’m wondering where fast food fits into readers’ lives these days.
I don’t drink coffee, and doughnuts are not my friend as I try to hold the line on middle-age spread. Matter of fact, most fast food has become unattractive to me for a variety of reasons. But we go on long road trips where finding a washroom becomes somewhat attractive. I don’t have a data plan for my phone, so free wifi is another attraction. (Note: It’s only polite to buy something when utilizing services, so I will get a pastry, or a side of fries at the golden arches.)
The public radio demographic is famously stereotyped as Prius-driving, granola heads. So the sample audience for this post may well lean toward outliers (which Merriam-Webster defines as “a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample”).
Still, I am curious. Canadians, is Tim’s really special to you? If so, can you describe why?
And readers on both sides of the border, have you seen your relationship with fast food change over the years? How so and why? Do you see that happening in general, or just in more health-conscious spheres?
For me, fast food chains have become occasional travel hubs that have almost nothing to do with the food they offer. What are they to you?
Tags: Burger King, business, canada, fast food, food, health, Tim Hortons
I confess to retaining a secret weakness for bacon double cheeseburgers, but I try to go for independent diners whenever possible. Less and less possible these days as the chains have sucked all the oxygen out of small town economies, just like convenience stores did with Mom and Pop grocery and clean your windshield, check your oil gas stations, or muffler shops did with your local mechanic. Apparently local, funky and independent are inconvenient.
But it took the innovations of 10,000 independent burger joints to perfect what the chains have cashed in on. Who’s going to invent the heart attack food of future generations–rude demented fry cooks or “food product engineers?” I think we know–sigh.
Dale Hobson, NCPR
Fast food = cheap, predictable food and bathroom break on the road. I love Dunkin’s espresso (and avoid a certain mermaid-themed chain if at all possible) and their snack foods are somewhat edible although the service is invariably terrible. Their management handbooks could use an efficiency overhaul!
Subway is reliable, if you don’t think too hard about the length of time ingredients sit in the slightly-lower-than-room-temp stainless pans. Otherwise, I have no relationship at all with fast food. Would rather pick up a deli sandwich from convenience store most of the time, and a bag of chips and a diet Coke will keep me on the road for quite a few hours.
I used to eat fast food frequently about 20 years ago, and I don’t know if it is a change in my palette or that the food has gotten worse, but I can’t stand the food anymore.
Tim Hortons’ coffee is drinkable, but I am very disappointed in that in Canada there are usually 4 or five different kinds of maple-based donuts and in the US locations there are often none.
One of my kids gave the most apt descriptions of fast food I have ever heard at a recent emergency stop during a road trip. “It tastes like chemicals.”
Just today while stopped at a red light I was amazed at the drive-though line at McDonalds. How can people eat that stuff?
Hardly ever eat “fast foods” because I live in Indian Lake, avoid Glens Falls like the plague and don’t like to pay for what I can make at home.
That said, I don’t have a problem with any of the chains and did like Tim Hortons when I stopped at one between Buffalo and Detroit back in 2001. Will probably never again get the chance because I don’t want to be bother with border security.
Sorry Canada. I used to love going to Canada when all that was needed was to say where you were born, where are you going and when will you be back.
For fans of Tim Horton’s and/or Burger King, take heart, nothing will change. You will notice not a thing different.
This merger is about Burger King avoiding taxes in the U.S. Ye ole tax loophole game as they will be able to call their corporate HQ Au Canada.
Horton’s does make a fine sammy, a little pricey, but good stuff. Burger King is really the best of the fast burger. win win for everybody except the American taxpayer.
For a coffee drinker like me, Tim’s coffee is far from being the best but it is acceptable and completely consistent from store to store. And, as Lucy says, they offer reliable free wi-fi at every location (I also don’t have a data plan) and their washrooms are (almost always) clean and convenient. Because virtually every small town has at least one’s Tim’s it is the place to stop for us when traveling long distances in Canada.
Oh, and how pervasive are they in Canada? Well, there are 5 (yes, 5) of them within a 20 minute walk of my house here in Ottawa.
Potsdam used to have a great lunch and dinner place in Scoopachino’s but alas it is gone, being replaced by a large cookie cutter hotel. I’ve been tempted to use one of the “start your own on-line petition” sites to petition for the rebirth of Scoopachino’s or at least for someone else to buy their old menu. I especially miss Twisted Turkey and Sleezy Cheezy sandwiches.
There’s one thing I don’t understand though about the BK buying TH deal. If Burger King is buying Tim Horton’s why is Burger King becoming a Canadian company? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Or each division should retain its own nationality? Corporate nationality shouldn’t be changeable on a whim. I can’t buy a piece of land in Canada (or any other country) and then just declare myself a citizen of that country. This looks like another case of corporations not only being “persons” but super-persons with special privileges.
I eat fast food so I’m not going to get all pompous at people who do. But it’s absurd that our subsidies are bass ackwards. Real food is expensive. Fast food is cheap (out of pocket) because all the subsidies are given to the giant agrobusiness that supplies fast food. Rational public policy would subsidize health choices. But ours is so distorted by corporate bribes… I mean “contributions”… a bipartisan plague.
I lived in West Africa. Real food (fresh fruit & veggies) was extremely cheap. Anything processed was relatively expensive. They don’t have subsidies for crap to distort things.