Profits slide for McDonalds in UK
Fast food giant McDonald’s saw profits at its 770 company-owned UK restaurants fall by 71% to £23.6m (€34.7m) in 2003.
The group said the fall was “entirely due” to a restructuring of its financial set-up but added that it had experienced a “challenging couple of years”.
Profits at the UK parent company – which adds in contributions from its 470 franchises and real estate activities – were the same as last year at £118m (€173m) and in line with expectations, McDonald’s said.
Reports filed at Companies House in the last 10 days show that turnover at McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd fell to £1.09bn (€1.6bn) from £1.13bn (€1.66bn) a year earlier.
McDonald’s said the slump in profits followed an accountancy-based restructuring involving its UK businesses.
The chain has been in the spotlight in recent weeks due to the launch of the film Super Size Me, which shows director Morgan Spurlock living on a diet of McDonald’s food for a month.
It also launched a healthy Happy Meal in the UK this summer, in its latest attempt to shrug off its junk food image.
The meal-in-a-box contains a salad, drink and Stepometer – a small device that clips on a belt and counts the number of steps taken.
Criticism from health campaigners about Britain’s growing obesity problem has also led the chain to introduce changes to its hugely popular Happy Meals for children.
McDonald’s said today that it would be hard to attribute any effects of recent challenges to the results, which were for the year to December 31 2003.
It added: “It has certainly been a challenging couple of years for McDonald’s in the UK as the business has dealt with an explosion in competition and other issues, but in the last nine months the UK business has begun to follow the turnaround pattern that we’ve seen in places such as the US and Australia.”
It said it was seeing positive sales momentum in the UK. This was down to the increased choice on its menu, investment in restaurant refurbishments and the introduction of services such as internet access.
The company opened its first UK outlet in Woolwich in 1974 and now has some 1,240 across the UK. It plans to open another 22 restaurants this year and 24 next year.
