Mark Huizenga: Hey everybody, it's State Senator Mark Heisinga. We're here doing another podcast today, Conversations with Mark today. We're with somebody who works with organization that I think everybody knows, McDonald's. Ryan Reardon, you're the franchise of several McDonald's in West Michigan. What is it like to be like the guru of franchises in McDonald's? That's a really, really good question. It's fun. Every day is fun. Every day is different. So we have 19 locations. across West Michigan, the majority in district. Anywhere from 800 to a thousand employees, depending on the time of year. Every day is different and every day is great because I get to interact with the community and obviously my employees and the people are what make me want to go to work every day. Yeah. I think a lot of times people think of McDonald's is a big corporation that most of the stores are corporate owned. But when you just mentioned that you have 19 locations across West Michigan, that's pretty impressive. And I don't know what the number is, but I, I know there are some corporate stores in West Michigan, but different franchisees, they overlap and they have, they have stores all over, but it's really about the American dream, being a business owner. And that's one of the things I talk about about Michigan all the time is a place to live, work and start and run a business. you're here for us. So you've been here for a long time. Tell me a little bit about why McDonald's is important, but also why it's important to Michigan beyond just the, um, the jobs you provide. And I think, let me back up. We know that people oftentimes think of McDonald's as a starter job, but you have jobs there where they're, actually career positions. Yep. No, that's a, that's a great point. So, you know, to your question, there's around 500 locations in the state of Michigan. 90 % are owned by independent. owner operators. So the vast majority are guys like me, guys and girls like me. So yeah, the impact McDonald's is it's across the board, right? So there's you have the person that comes out looking to join the job force and get their first job. And you have people that are there for a career. The beautiful thing about working for us is if you have 10 hours that you want to work in a week or you have 40 hours you want to work in a week, we'll find a spot for you. So a lot of times it's a second shifter with a two earner household or, you know, a parent that gets her kids off to school and can only work between eight and four o'clock. We were the niche for that. recently the company did a, national advertisement campaign of one in eight people at some point in their life worked at McDonald's. So the beautiful thing about that is the systems and the processes in place. that are put out for you when you go to work, you can apply that to anything. So when people see that you worked at a McDonald's, you know, if you apply for a job at a factory or, know, you want to move on in a different area of management, knowing that you had this set of systems that you work by. Well, those are foundational skills. Yes. Right. So you're, you're one in a high pace environment. The quality is expected to be there. And most importantly the consistency and those things translate to probably every other job right in the exactly the rest of your life Really? Yep. Yep, and what you were talking about too and in casting that wide net and I go back like we were talking earlier that you know We have farmers in Michigan that produce a ton I jotted these down just because the numbers are staggering and I wasn't gonna be able to remember them But well, we were just talking the other day about apples. Yeah, and we actually met at a Apple or to talk with The farmers who said, know, McDonald's is a great organization because they buy a lot of our products. Yes. Yes. And that speaking of apples, last year we bought 14 million pounds of apples cultivated in the state of Michigan, along with 136 million pounds of corn, 55 million dozen eggs, 23 million gallons of milk. And the list goes on and on. And these are, these are independent farmers and larger farms that are contributing to the entire McDonald's system coming right out of Michigan, is, which is really a really neat feather in the cap. Um, especially for myself, I'm, I've been serving on a national supply chain council within the corporation for the last six years. And when people see somebody from Michigan, their eyes light up because we are contributing. Our product is going into these distribution centers that are then distributing to the rest of the U S so we make a difference here and it's, it makes you proud to work here. I heard one time that the Herbrooks place out near Saranac that they provide eggs for like all the Egg McMuffins like from Michigan to Florida. Yeah, it might be, it's close to the Mississippi. like it's Yeah, everything east of the Mississippi. Yeah. That's insane really. Yeah, it's, I mean, it gives you goosebumps thinking about it, you know? And those are local guys in Ionia that have been doing it for, you know, generations, right? So no, it's great. It's a good place to do business too. mean, it's fun. McDonald's is not your father's McDonald's. mean, you're part of, you can't be static. You're part of a growing and dynamic industry. Restaurants have to change and pivot all the time. You're nice enough to bring us a cup of coffee. It's one of those staples that I've always counted on. McDonald's coffee is always good. It's stellar. I love the paper cup without having to do a sleeve on there and all that kind of stuff. But you you do, You've changed a lot. I remember when I was in Walker on the planning commission way back when, and they were going to do a tear down of a McDonald's and they're getting rid of the play land. And I asked the guy, said, why are you getting rid of the play land? seemed like that's really popular. He's like, yeah, it was like 15 years ago. I'm like, well, I guess I was thinking about maybe when I was a kid or something like that. was like, you know, so much of our business now is drive through. And so it almost seems to me like that would heighten the pace of activity. And like, I'm sure the, the metrics that you have to use to like the take care of the cars and get them quicker and faster and better. The pressure, it's gotta be relentless. Yep, yep. Yeah, it's funny you bring that restaurant up too, because I was there from the day they tore it down to now. And it was, I mean, just on Alpine Avenue, that traffic shift and things moving north and just Walker as a whole changing and demographics and dynamics. And the big thing with now when you're talking about the business shifting with these, you know, multiple places where you can order, you know, we have stores that are 30, 35 % on a digital app. So they don't even interact with the human. Right. So they either pull into a parking spot with a number or they go through the drive-through and you give a number and say, Hey, here's your food. Right. So it's not, it's a static's the best way to put it. but you haven't, you haven't mandated that. So you can go into the store and you can use the kiosk. You can do it on your app. and you can still talk to a person. Yes. Yeah. So you can still talk to there's, there's people that will never ever not talk to a person and that's great too. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. My mom, she's 85. She's not using an app to buy food. No, no. Or the kiosk. Yeah. Or she doesn't like that either. Yep. No, that's consistent. That's, that's pretty, that's pretty standard. Yeah. What else has changed at McDonald's? mean, aside from that, just the change of the drive-through and things like that, your menu's also changed, I think. Right. I mean, I know I'm trying to figure out, but it was It was quite a while ago where you guys said we're going to go big because it looks like coffee is actually way bigger than just plain coffee and the cappuccinos and all this kind of stuff. You guys, I think, I don't know how it works. Does the McDonald's corporate say, Hey, here's the design for what this has to look like. And we're all going to do it. You're in or you're out or, and I think it was probably a pretty good idea because coffee continues to be a bigger segment of the food market. And I think the, this country is coffee crazy right now. Yep. No, you're 100 % right. If you're not knowing how the system works, you hit the nail on the head, right? So they'll go out and test in certain areas. Michigan was actually ground zero for the espresso machines, the original espresso machine. So we got those first and then it turned to, you know, the frappes and the smoothies. And now there's the frozen cokes and tomorrow there's a whole new national beverage platform launch. It's going to get more into the trendy side and the younger generation of the types of drinks that they like to have. Energy drinks. Yeah. Is that it? Because think that's like everybody is talking right now about the energy drinks. Yeah, and the coolers and those types of things. Yeah, it's a shifting sand, it went more from when you're saying your dad's McDonald's where you have six options. We're following the customer. And if they tell us they like something, we're going to figure out a way to put it in their hands and put it in their hands at the best price and most quality they can get. because it's the end of the day, right? We're a value driven, customer centric, local business. And we're going to stay that way. A lot of people these days are talking about inflation, higher prices. I'm sure you guys feel the pressure too, because it's not just, you don't want to sell at a higher price to charge people more. Your acquisition, your apples, your potatoes, your eggs, they all cost more too. And I'm sure that during the period where eggs spiked, had the avian flu virus thing and the price was just skyrocketing. You guys had to kind of tow the line a little bit. I mean, I sure, I'm sure you can't change the price on this stuff every day. and that's probably a little tougher on you as a franchisee and like, wait a minute, this is killing me. I'm not making it here, but you guys have to deal with the same kind of commodity pricing issues that the average consumer does at the same time. You want to try to keep that price low enough. So it's attractive for the demographic. That's going to be going out to McDonald's. Yep. Yep, we actually took a step in the opposite direction last week and started another value platform. So when you go out there, I mean, we have an under three menu now. And interestingly, the commodities are moving faster than we could ever adjust to. So you look at it, you can't take a menu board and treat it like a display on a gas station. Right. Right. They don't change it. We need to a consistent value, right? Because of our scale. and our buying power, we don't get hit as hard when commodities move. I it hurts, but it hurts more to people that are buying groceries or going to smaller places. Mentioning chicken though, like that's one thing without getting too far in the weeds, we're vertically integrated with chicken. So we own the chicken. So we're not sourcing outside of that. It also probably protects your quality and your standards because you don't have to worry about it because you know from the very beginning to the end that this is what we're going to get. This is what we're trying to create and you own that process. Yeah. If we went the whole process route and cold chain custody, that'd be a two hour podcast and you'd probably fall asleep halfway through it. yeah, I know it, the needle moves a lot and it's been, you know, the outside pressures are there. It's, it's the same for us as a business owner. Yeah. Yeah. One of the other things I think McDonald's is very popular and known for is kind of this co-promotion and or branding, co-branding of movies and characters and stuff like that. I, I don't, I don't know the answer for sure, but I'm sure that every kid that goes to McDonald's that gets the little toy, whether it's in the meal or the branded cup or whatever. remember when I was a kid getting the, the star Wars glasses and they were so cool to go to McDonald's. Do have any those kind of projects coming up this year for movies? One's in the works and I don't think I'm allowed to talk about it. And that's fine. The World Cup is coming up. So there's going to be a big promotion with that. And there has been a shift in the last couple of years to what you said, tapping into the nostalgia of people our age, throwing that back and trying to bring that excitement back because I was the same way. the Snoopy's cups, the glass cups and you know, and had to be careful when you got home with your Happy Meal box, you didn't break them. Right. But yeah, no, there's some stuff coming up that people are going to be really excited about. Definitely the World Cup is the next big thing on the map. So yeah, that's cool. Well, I can't wait for the big release. It sounds like it'd be good. Yeah, it should be. Do you have any personal or meaningful stories, things that really stand out from you about an experience that maybe a customer had or maybe an employee who took the job with you and that you it gives extra meaning to you and the work that you do here. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot, we do, we do a lot behind the scenes that, we don't, we don't talk about, right? You could be someone that's got something going on at home and you, you help them out and find them a place, you know, they're in trouble with housing or, or cars or, know, you name it. It's, it's kind of just, we just do it. Right. The most impactful stuff that I see though is people at work for me, I'll see them five or 10 years down the road somewhere else. And I'll say that they talk about what they did here at work, know, and helping people through college. Like we have $2,500 yearly intuition assistance available to any employee. Which is incredible. I think most people probably don't know that. No, no, we don't talk about it enough, right? There's that and there's the beautiful thing too is that there's a, it's called English under the arches and we have an instructor that's bilingual and he's teaching people our language to integrate and get a GED, get an equivalency degree, go to college and they're building all these foundational steps through us. But I think the stuff that I'm most proud of within our office and what we do here. We're really involved at the Children's Advocacy Center of Ottawa County, the Griffin's Youth Foundation. We do a lot of community impact stuff just from us, right? But a specific individual story, man, I'd really have to tap the bank to find, because they're all so cool and they're all so different, right? everybody's got it's probably too many because- There's a lot. What you described though is- the average employer that really cares for the people. And why do we care for our employees as people? Because they make our business work, but it's also what we do. It's about making community. And your comments about taking a student, a person that doesn't have good English skills, you're basically like the English second language learner university. You're teaching them the American dream. You're living the American dream as a franchisee. But you're also making that happen for people that are starting off, giving them the first job. Maybe it's an immigrant that comes here that learns the language. That's pretty awesome. Yep. Yeah. It's great. And I mean, the countless number, we always talk about our internal customer, right? And you're only as good as the people you have. That goes across the board for anything. But if I don't take care of my internal customer, I can't expect to take care of the external customer. And that's how we look at every interaction every day. play the long game. Ryan, thanks so much for joining us in the podcast today. Really enjoy you. Thanks for the coffee. Absolutely. Have a great day. All right. Thank you.