Meat Industry Says Big Macs Are Doomed

A recent feature on meat industry media outlet Cattle Network focused on the rapid decline of fast-food giant McDonald’s. Writer Dan Murphy posed that, “As far as many millennials now in their 20s and 30s are concerned, the Big Mac is becoming at best irrelevant, an object of derision, rather than desire.” This notion is supported by McDonald’s’ own recent report that only one in five millennials has ever tried their signature burger. Murphy opines that the decline of the burger is credited to a shift in consumer preference, stating that the company’s sales are suffering “as the coveted younger demographic of consumers increasingly gravitates to a plethora of healthier menu choices, ethnic options, and vegetarian alternatives.” Murphy also mentions upcoming film The Founders, stating that it is “an account of McDonald’s rise to popularity”—wherein The Office producer BJ Novak plays Harry J. Sonneborn, the consultant responsible for the company’s unprecedented expansion. Ironically, in a recent interview, Novak expressed his support for decreasing the role of animal agriculture in food production, stating that cultured meat has “a real shot at changing everything.”