Latest / Best of Business / Kylie Freeland: McDonald’s managing director on McDonald’s NZ turning 50

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Kylie Freeland: McDonald’s managing director on McDonald’s NZ turning 50 · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk st B.
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  Speaker 2: So a milestone birthday for one of our biggest fast
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  Speaker 2: food outlets, maccus mickey D's the Golden Arches. Today mark's
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  Speaker 2: fifty years since the first McDonald's opened in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: with the first store in Portia.
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  Speaker 1: Here in New Zealand at por.
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  Speaker 3: We've got it all.
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  Speaker 1: We've gone all.
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  Speaker 3: At McDonald's, Wenda burgers, you fig fish as.
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  Speaker 2: McDonald McDonald's is great fun for all the family.
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  Speaker 1: Eat him or take away at McDonald's.
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  Speaker 2: We've done it. It was the first ever McDonald's. Add
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  Speaker 2: some fun facts about maccus from nineteen seventy six of
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  Speaker 2: Big Mac seventy six cents, cheeseburger forty cents, hamburger thirty cents.
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  Speaker 2: The original menu only had six burgers, soft drinks, desserts
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  Speaker 2: and fries, and the store opened to a queue of
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  Speaker 2: over one hundred people that entered the store to the
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  Speaker 2: sound of a brass band playing. Now that's an opening.
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  Speaker 2: McDonald's managing director Kylie Freeland is with me here. It's
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  Speaker 2: reminisce on fifty years. Good morning, Kylie.
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  Speaker 3: We'rena Francesca. Thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know this, but New Zealand was one of
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  Speaker 2: the first countries in the world outside of the US
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  Speaker 2: to get McDonald's.
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  Speaker 3: Is that right, Yeah, that's correct. In nineteen sixty seven.
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  Speaker 3: McDonald's first went outside the US, but they were really
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  Speaker 3: focused on those bigger countries, with Australia opening in nineteen
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  Speaker 3: seventy one. But after the persistence of two franchisees flying
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  Speaker 3: over and talking to Ray Rock, we're really proud to
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  Speaker 3: get McDonald's here in nineteen sixty seventy six.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, tell me about the original owners of the Proroo McDonald's.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Hugh and Wally Morris were the original owners and
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  Speaker 3: they are originally in supermarkets, but they had a real
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  Speaker 3: vision to bring golden arches to New Zealand, and as
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  Speaker 3: I said, they flew over to the US and saw
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  Speaker 3: Ray Croc. He unfortunately said no, that's not where we're
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  Speaker 3: focused at the moment, but they did manage to agree
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  Speaker 3: that with him to open them up, and they came
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  Speaker 3: back and opened it in po Rua on a side
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  Speaker 3: of where a squash court was.
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  Speaker 2: And then how quickly did McDonald spread throughout the country well.
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  Speaker 3: By ninety ninety one we had fifty restaurants, and between
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  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one ninety seven we doubled that to one
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  Speaker 3: hundred restaurants. Today we have one hundred and seventy seven,
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  Speaker 3: but we've got another six opening this year.
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  Speaker 2: I thought this was really interesting. The drive thrus only
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  Speaker 2: took two years to get into place. The first one
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  Speaker 2: opened in nineteen seventy eight, and you fast forward to
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  Speaker 2: now and that is the most popular way that Kiwis order.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. Lower Hutt and New Lynn were the two
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  Speaker 3: restaurants that opened in nineteen seventy eight, and customers just
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  Speaker 3: loved that way of being able to order food and
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  Speaker 3: did very quickly turn to the way predominantly ordering. Kiwis
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  Speaker 3: love drive through today and since the end of last year,
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  Speaker 3: you can now place your order on your mobile phone
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  Speaker 3: in advance and just come through the drives throom and
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  Speaker 3: collect it.
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  Speaker 2: And we also invented the drive through timer that is
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  Speaker 2: now used all over the world, didn't.
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  Speaker 3: We We did. It was real cutting edge technology that
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  Speaker 3: they had to actually measure the cars as they came
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  Speaker 3: into the lane and exited the lane to know what
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  Speaker 3: time they were coming through in It gave us the
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  Speaker 3: ability not only to see it in every restaurant, but
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  Speaker 3: actually compare every restaurant in the country and you could
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  Speaker 3: compete against each other. And we're really proud that every
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  Speaker 3: single country in the world now offers some sort of
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  Speaker 3: technology similar to this.
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  Speaker 2: I have absolutely no recollection of this, but did McDonald's
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  Speaker 2: really trial tomato and chicken noodle soups at one point?
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  Speaker 3: We really did, and it obviously was not a cracker
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  Speaker 3: on the menu because you can't find it there today.
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  Speaker 3: But we also trilled pre we may take home meals
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  Speaker 3: in the early two thousands called dinner Tonight. We were
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  Speaker 3: actually the platform for the world wild trial of that
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  Speaker 3: once again didn't necessarily take off, but we continue working
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  Speaker 3: on innovations like this to try and work out what
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  Speaker 3: do our customers really want next for McDonald's.
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  Speaker 2: Now, maccas has lasted fifty years. One point five million
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  Speaker 2: kiwik's visit McDonald's every week. What makes it so popular?
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  Speaker 2: Why has it endured?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're really focused on the core of delivering excellent quality,
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  Speaker 3: service and cleanliness for every customer, and the magic of
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  Speaker 3: it is being able to replicate it across the world.
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  Speaker 3: So not only do the Keywis love macers here, but
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  Speaker 3: they also love it when we go overseas. Knowing that
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  Speaker 3: you can go and get a big mac anywhere in
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  Speaker 3: the world and you're going to get that same macas experience.
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  Speaker 3: It's really important to us that we continue to listen
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  Speaker 3: to those needs of the customers so we can bring
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  Speaker 3: in new product lines and new experience and continue to
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  Speaker 3: make it a fun place to just come and enjoy
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  Speaker 3: yourself and grab yourself a treat.
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  Speaker 2: Kindly, the last three managing directors, which includes yourself, all
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  Speaker 2: started as crew members. That's pretty cool.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. And for me, it's thirty years in
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  Speaker 3: September since I started in a restaurant in Brisbane out
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  Speaker 3: the back cooking burgers. For me, it was just a
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  Speaker 3: part time job. I was in school and finishing my degree,
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  Speaker 3: but I think by the time i'd finished that I
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  Speaker 3: had ketchup in my veins and the rest is history.
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  Speaker 3: We are super proud to offer so many young people
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  Speaker 3: their first experience in McDonald's and we've got about ten thousand
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  Speaker 3: people who work for us at the moment, but we
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  Speaker 3: do estimate since nineteen seventy six women we've started, over
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  Speaker 3: two hundred thousand kiwis have worked at macas and I
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  Speaker 3: think that that's what's really important to us. And we've
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  Speaker 3: been spending this time being nostalgic and looking back over
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  Speaker 3: the last fifty years. It's really all about our people.
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  Speaker 3: The food's about a store, but there's generations of kiwis
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  Speaker 3: who have grown up with McDonald's and it's really been
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  Speaker 3: their first step into the workforce.
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  Speaker 2: Kylie, thanks so much for your time this morning. Appreciated.
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  Speaker 2: That was Kylie Freeland, the McDonald's managing director.
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