Fast food companies facing fight to win trust of millennials

Those born between 1980 and 2000 are big spenders, but McDonalds and others will fail to win their custom if things don’t change

In April 2014, McDonald’s announced Ronald McDonald will take an active role on social media for the first time. Photograph: AP

Bozena Jankowska, global co-head of ESG, Allianz Global Investors

Growing up in communist Poland in the 1970s, processed food was a luxury and western brands were a treat that could only be bought in government-approved shops.

When I moved to England in 1980, my whole world changed. Food, as I knew it, was different. Besides there being no food queues, the real revelation was fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King. At this time, the links between processed foods and obesity were tenuous but gradually, with documentaries such as Super Size Me openly criticising food and beverage companies, the danger of processed and fast food began to reach the public consciousness.

Since the 1980s, we have almost seen a doubling of obesity worldwide. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 65% of the world’s population live in countries where being overweight or obese kills more people than malnutrition and in 2013, 42 million children under the age of five were overweight or obese.

viaFast food companies facing fight to win trust of millennials | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian.