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There are no bows, golden or not, on the McDonald’s ersatz that opened in Moscow on Sunday. The well-known colors red and yellow are nowhere to be found. Missing trademark “M” and with good reason: McDonald’s in Moscow is no longer McDonald’s.
It’s “Vkusno and Tochka,” which translates to “Tasty and That’s It.”
It is a play about the old McDonald’s motto in Russia, which was “fun and tasty,” a clue, perhaps, “that will no longer be fun,” as blogger Pavel Komarovsky suggested in a tweet.
Take a look at what some have called the “sanctions edition” of the American fast food chain.
The franchise is under new Russian ownership, a resurgence that highlights both the country’s economic agility and its growing isolation in the face of a barrage of sanctions.
“We are delighted that you are coming here 32 years after the opening of the flagship McDonald’s, Russia’s first restaurant,” said the chain’s new owner, Siberian businessman Alexander Govor, addressing a crowd that was visibly smaller than the thousands of people there. met at the original McDonald’s opening on the site of Pushkin Square in January 1990.
This event symbolized the thawing of the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the West. This represented a new deep freeze.
McDonald’s closes in Russia. His first restaurant in the USSR was a sensation.
“Life has come with its own changes,” Govor said, underestimating Russia’s refusal to call its invasion of Ukraine an invasion or its war a war.
Russia’s bloody and large-scale attack on Ukraine has left a formerly globalized Russian economy toxic to global companies, including McDonald’s.
Nearly 1,000 companies have downsized their operations in Russia, according to a database compiled by the Yale School of Management. McDonald’s suspended operations in Russia in mid-March and two months later announced that the war in Ukraine and the unpredictability of running a business in Russia made its presence “no longer sustainable” or “consistent with values.” of McDonald’s “.
The company’s full exit would have hurt even in a affluent megacity like Moscow, as McDonald’s revenue accounted for more than 50 percent of all fast-food businesses in the city.
Instead, McDonald’s sold its business to Govor at a significant discount compared to its market value, according to its interview with the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.
“Frankly, we were concerned about the fate of the company, the employees and the suppliers; We are talking about tens of thousands of people, “Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said at the opening ceremony, which coincided with Russia’s Independence Day.” We have been helping. to the chain to reconfigure their work as soon as possible and I’m glad it worked “.
Leaving Russia, McDonald’s dismantles a 30-year relationship
Nationwide, 62,000 people will be able to keep their jobs for two years, including McDonald’s management, as Vkusno and Tochka plan to gradually renovate some 850 restaurants.
Some of the old McDonald’s have been preserved. The double cheeseburger is still a double cheeseburger.
“He had the same taste,” said a client of Vkusno and Tochka, identified on local state television only as Lyudmila. “Nothing has changed.”
The new fast food place will probably be able to retain the original taste of Moscow’s McDonald’s, as most of the products are sourced locally in Russia for years. But the US company put heavy restrictions on the new owner to distance himself from his successor as much as possible.
Govor said the chain’s logo now represents a burger and two individual green and orange chips that some commentators compared to the Marriott hotel chain’s logo.
Some Russian Internet users felt that the new name of the franchise reflected the level of authoritarianism of modern Russia. “Any mention of a Big Mac will result in a large fine,” he mocked one of the country’s satirical news websites.
The updated menu is much smaller and in fact lacks basic items such as Big Mac and McFlurry due to the clear links to the Mcdonald’s brand.
Coca-Cola fountains will soon be replaced by new flavors; the company is accepting offers from local manufacturers.
“We have some stocks of Coca-Cola, which we will use for a while … but sooner or later, stocks will run out. The new Coca-Cola will not be produced in Russia. I am sure its competitors will produce wonderful flavors. “said executive Oleg Paroev before the opening.
Paroev said the company would maintain “affordable prices,” but did not rule out an increase in the coming months.
The packaging has also been stripped of the golden bows and left mostly blank, perhaps as a result of a hasty brand change made in just 22 days. Some food and beverage manufacturers in Russia have also struggled to secure enough packaging after giants like Tetra Pak hit the market.
A Russian juice company, Sady Pridonya, had to remove most of the design from its boxes, jokingly dubbing the new look “An edition of limited sanctions”, as restrictions imposed on Russia disrupted the supply of ” necessary materials, including some types of cardboard, varnishes and paints ”.
Govor, the new owner, said he wants to experiment with the menu in the future.
“There are some ideas that we have not been able to implement [under the McDonald’s franchise]but now I will insist and turn them into reality, “he told Vedomosti.
“For example, people from different regions have different tastes. People like species in the Caucasus and Siberian mountains, but not in central Russia, so we shouldn’t offer them the same things.”
The launch presents a big test for the Russian economy. If it manages to offer good enough alternatives to Western brands, this may further encourage President Vladimir Putin to think that Russia can do it alone.
The Kremlin had long promoted the concept of import substitution, which has so far yielded mediocre results, especially when it comes to imports and high-tech industries. Last week, Putin met with young Russian businessmen to project his public commitment to keeping the national economy running even as his war in Ukraine comes to a standstill.
“We will not have a closed economy,” Putin said. “In the Soviet era, when we cut ourselves, we created the so-called Iron Curtain, we created it with our own hands. We will not make the same mistake again: our economy will be open. “
Moscow is betting on other trade routes, especially China, India and its Middle Eastern partners, to replace the markets it lost to the West.
But it remains an open question how economic powers like China are committed to helping Putin’s heavily sanctioned government and risking its own business with the West.