Chapter 5: Why The Fries Taste Good

Chapter 5: Why the Fries Taste Good (Page 111-132)
John Richard Simplot is the owner and founder of the J.R. Simplot plant. This plant is in Aberdeen, Idaho and process potatoes into french-fries. J.R Simplot was born on 1909 in Dubuque, Iowa and eventually moved to Idaho. When he turned fifteen, worked at a potato warehouse in Idaho, and when he turned sixteen, he became a potato farmer. In the 1920s Simplot and his partner Lindsay Margaret bought an electric potato sorter. Simplot wanted to expose and sell this device to the other farmers, but Margaret disagreed. In the end, Simplot won a bet against Margaret and was able to sell the equipment. After selling this equipment, he started his business of potato cellar in Delco with the money

he earned from selling the machine. In his company, he delivered potatoes and onions, which was very successful. By the time he was thirty-six years old, he bought potato farms and cattle ranchers and built fertilizing plants and lumber mills.
After World War 2 in 1950s, he started to invest in frozen foods, and in 1953, he began selling frozen french-fries. In 1965, he made a deal with McDonalds to produce french-fries for them. This became successful because it was easy and fast to make. In 1994, when he was eighty-four years old, he stepped down as the chief executive, but still continued to buy potato farms. Although Simplot company was successful getting a contract with McDonalds, providing french-fries, Lamb Weston and McCain became larger companies than Simplot due to their huge investments and production systems.
Schlosser believes that although many potatoes/ french-fries are sold every year, not a lot of money are made from selling them. This is because if 1.50 dollars are spent on buying fries the only two cents goes to the farmers who plant those potatoes. Schlosser also says that french-fries are made from natural flavors, which are flavors that are completely man made.
By reading this chapter I learned a lot of new thing involving french-fries which is one of my favorite food. I learned the process and history of how french-fries were made. The fact that only two out of 100 percent of the money made from french-fries goes to the farmer surprised me the most throughout this chapter.
Chapter 2: Your Trusted Friends (Page 31-58)
This chapter talks about big businesses including Disney and McDonald relate to each other and how they have advertised to appeal to children with toys in their food.

Chapter 3: Behind the Counter (Page 59-90)
This chapter talks about how the businesses that large companies and franchise companies run and how the government supports them.

Chapter 4: Success (Page 91-110)
This chapter focuses on the success of franchise companies like the delivery pizza companies and fast food chains that became very successful after investing in franchise field.

Chapter 5: Why the Fries Taste Good (Page 111-132)
John Richard Simplot is the owner and founder of the J.R.

Simplot plant. This plant is in Aberdeen, Idaho and process potatoes into french-fries. J.R Simplot was born on 1909 in Dubuque, Iowa and eventually moved to Idaho. When he turned fifteen, worked at a potato warehouse in Idaho, and when he turned sixteen, he became a potato farmer. In the 1920s Simplot and his partner Lindsay Margaret bought an electric potato sorter. Simplot wanted to expose and sell this device to the other farmers, but Margaret disagreed. In the end, Simplot won a bet against Margaret and was able to sell the equipment. After selling this equipment, he started his business of potato cellar in Delco with the money he earned from selling the machine. In his company, he delivered potatoes and onions, which was very successful. By the time he was thirty-six years old, he bought potato farms and cattle ranchers and built fertilizing plants and lumber

mills.
After World War 2 in 1950s, he started to invest in frozen foods, and in 1953, he began selling frozen french-fries. In 1965, he made a deal with McDonalds to produce french-fries for them. This became successful because it was easy and fast to make. In 1994, when he was eighty-four years old, he stepped down as the chief executive, but still continued to buy potato farms. Although Simplot company was successful getting a contract with McDonalds, providing french-fries, Lamb Weston and McCain became larger companies than Simplot due to their huge investments and production systems.
Schlosser believes that although many potatoes/ french-fries are sold every year, not a lot of money are made from selling them. This is because if 1.50 dollars are spent on buying fries the only two cents goes to the farmers who plant those potatoes. Schlosser also says that french-fries are made from natural flavors, which are flavors that are completely man made.
By reading this chapter I learned a lot of new thing involving french-fries which is one of my favorite food. I learned the process and history of how french-fries were made. The fact that only two out of 100 percent of the money made from french-fries goes to the farmer surprised me the most throughout this chapter.

Chapter 6: On the Range (Page133-148)
Hank is a rancher in Colorado Springs. He believes that ranchers should care about the environment before putting business first. He also believes that farmers are over grazing, over using the water, and abusing the animal for business.
Schlosser believes that most small farmers are gone now because the larger farmers are selling meat for cheaper price because of mass-production.

Because of this, most farmers are selling off their farms to large companies or taking other side jobs to support themselves. Another reason why farmers are going out of business is because most businesses are using only large companies for their products. For instance in 1968, McDonald's had 175 independent meat suppliers, but now there are only five meat suppliers. The large companies have shared their information and cut down meat prices in order to take over the small farms. In 1970, the top four companies produced twenty-one percent of the meat, but now they produce eighty-four percent of the

meat.
Currently, most chicken producers are in debt, and large processors control all chicken producers. Any only eight processes produce 3/4 of the chickens produced in the U.S. In 1979, Fred Tyson supplied the chicken fingers/nuggets for McDonalds, but McDonalds’ demanded chicken with more meat for their restaurants. In order to accomplish this, Tyson researched more on chickens and produced drugs to make chicken that had more meat. Although million of chickens are bought everyday, the processors own the chickens, and farmers just take care of them and do not own any of the chickens they take care of. As a result processors get most of the money while the farmers get more in debt to the companies.
Before reading this chapter I knew that farmers were dying out in the United States, but after reading, I learned why farmers are dying out. The most interesting fact that I learned in this this chapter was about the chicken farmers who are in debt to the processes. I felt that this wasn't fair to the farmers because even though farmers do all the work like raising the chicken and keeping them safe, the processors get most of the money from selling the chickens the farmers take care of.