No McDonald's For You

Cerraron los tres McDonald's que habia en Reykjavik e Islandia se quedo sin McDonal's.
Aparentemente, a Ronald no le daban los costos. Asi que a partir del proximo finde, si la gente de Islandia quiere un Big Mac, van a tener que tomarse un barco o un avion.

Mi indice de McDensidad esta quedando desactualizado.

Islandia estaba en el puesto 31, con un local cada 101,456 habitantes.
Argentina en el 71, con un local cada 222,281 habitantes.

Abajo dejo 2 articulos que hablan del tema.


The Big Mac's Currency Lesson; McDonald's leaves Iceland.
27 October 2009
The Wall Street Journal Online

As cultural calamities go, there are worse fates than that of Iceland, which is losing all three of its McDonald's franchises, effective next weekend. But the Big Mac's departure from Iceland, a victim of the financial crisis that sent the krona into a tailspin, is nonetheless a suggestive economic indicator.

McDonald's Icelandic franchisee noted, in explaining his decision to throw in the patty, that unlike his local competitors, McDonald's imports most of its raw ingredients, from beef to special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and, we assume, sesame seed buns. This reliance on imports has undercut McDonald's margins in the island nation, which saw the krona plummet by more than 80% after the financial panic took down the country's major banks.

But the lesson here is not about the dangers of globalization or the virtues of buying local. Since Iceland's banks collapsed last fall, and its currency with them, the cost in local currency of all imports, and not just fast food, has soared. This has done nothing to "cushion" the blow to Iceland's economy from what amounted to an international run on its banks. What it has done is added a currency panic to a financial panic, and made Iceland's prospects bleaker than they otherwise might have been.

In euro-zone countries such as Ireland, some critics of the euro have argued that membership in the currency bloc has made its economic woes that much more painful, and that Ireland would have been better off if it could have depreciated its way out of trouble. But debasing one's currency makes a country poorer, not richer. Just ask the residents of Reykjavik, who now must travel 900 miles to get their Bic Mac—to Dublin.



McDonald's Is Closing Its Stores in Iceland
27 October 2009
The New York Times

REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- McDonald's said on Monday that it would close its business in Iceland because it was too expensive for the franchise to operate after the country's financial crisis.

The company that all three of its restaurants in Iceland, operated by a franchisee, Jon Ogmundsson, would stop operating at midnight on Saturday.

Mr. Ogmundsson has run the McDonald's restaurants since 2004. He told Reuters that the decision to close the restaurants was mainly due to the severe depreciation of the Icelandic krona and high taxes on imported food.

Instead, he will start a new burger chain at his three locations, under the name Metro, with locally sourced food.

''I've sold more hamburgers in the last few months than ever before, but the cost is prohibitive. It just makes no sense,'' he said. ''For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whiskey.''

Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis, devastating the country's economy and leaving it dependent on a $10 billion aid package led by the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Ogmundsson said that the cost of raw materials used in McDonald's meals had doubled in the last 18 months, and that there was little hope Iceland's economy would pick up enough to make the business viable.

McDonald's Europe said in a statement that it would not seek a new partner in Iceland because of the state of its economy and the complexity of doing business there.