Eating Out: Restaurants and Fast Food in France
9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
Admission: free

France is famed for its “haute cuisine.” Thirty years ago French employees enjoyed a two-hour lunch break. As often as not, workers would return home for a cooked meal with their families before resuming work in the afternoon. Eating out meant a gastronomic delight, leisurely consumed and invariably accompanied by a bottle of good, carefully chosen wine. This presentation told the story of how McDonald’s penetrated the French market, comparing some American fast food methods with European practice. How did McDonald’s conquer France? What went right, what went wrong? How did the French public react, how did McDonald’s adapt to France? And how did French business react to the challenge? Have other chains (such as Burger King, KFC, or Subway) been able to follow in McDonald’s footsteps? Is France succumbing to the global trend toward fast food or have the French managed to preserve their café and restaurant culture? The story of fast food in France illustrates many of the dilemmas a multinational may face when breaking into new markets overseas.

Dr. Robert Tatham studied in the U.K. and worked in industry before moving to France where he obtained his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris. He has lectured for many years at the Université de Savoie at Chambéry, in the heart of the French Alps. He runs a number of international programmes for the IMUS Institute of Management and is interested in further developing the existing IMUS exchange with MSSU.