Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

  • Home
  • Your Survival
    • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
    • EMP Threat
    • Tucker Explains
    • Newport Gas Outage
    • Water
      • Emergency Water Storage
      • Let There Be Water
    • Get Your Gun and Your Training Now
    • Satellite Phones
    • Navy SEAL Survival Kit
  • Your Money
    • Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • Looking for a Better America
    • You Invest, They Win
    • Where to Keep Your Cash
    • Paris
    • How to Buy a Boat
    • Dead or Alive? The Future of Long-Term Investing
    • Is Vanguard too Big?
    • Cryptocosm and Life After Google
    • The Last Intelligence Report
    • The Truth Behind the S&P 500
    • RAGE Gauge
    • How Many “Retirees” Will Keep Working?
    • Your Retirement Life
    • You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
  • Weapons
    • Self Defense
    • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • About Me
    • Preparing for Times Like These
    • My Videos/Pics
    • Music
      • RIP Neil Peart: You Will Always Be Remembered as a “Modern-Day Warrior”
    • Your Survival Guy: Make Your Bed and The Hero Code
  • You
    • Our Cabin on Kodiak, Alaska
    • If You Are in Pain, this May Help. It Helped Me.
    • How to Save for a Grandchild
    • FIRE! Financial Independence, Retire Early
    • Compound Interest
    • Arithmetic of Portfolio Losses
    • Maximum Portfolio Withdrawal Rate
    • An Efficient Frontier
    • Retirement Compounders
    • Counterbalanced Total Returns
  • Survive & Thrive
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • Welcome

Your Survival Guy’s Survival Stock/Blockchain & Bitcoin

May 5, 2021 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

By Sashkin @ Shutterstock.com

Your Survival Guy’s survival stock for you today is a company using blockchain technology to help bring you a better product. You may have heard of it: McDonald’s. Want to know how those two sizzling Big Mac patties get to you? Well, one supplier, Golden State Foods, uses blockchain through IBM’s Food Trust (see below).

But before we dig into this feast, what you and I need to know is: does it pay a dividend? And the answer is a big YES—since 1976. Like hot french fries dipped in ketchup—one, after another, after another.

And one year before that dividend began, some clever operator in Arizona cut a hole in the side of his building, creating the first drive-thru. Who would have thought serving customers from a window would be a thing? In an interview with McKinsey, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski talks about the three D’s: Drive-thru, Delivery, and Digital. (I’ll add a fourth to the order: DIVIDENDS, please.) From McKinsey:

Chris Kempczinski: Prior to 2017, delivery was a $1 billion business for us, largely in Asia. By the end of 2019, delivery sales were over $4 billion and we continued to see very strong growth in 2020. Additionally, we’ve been able to expand the number of restaurants offering delivery to more than 30,000. Much of it is done through third-party operators, like Uber Eats, DoorDash, Just Eat Takeaway, and Deliveroo, but in some markets—like parts of Asia, Australia, and Germany—we’re actually experimenting with hybrid models, including self-delivery.

As for drive-thru, we offer it in 95 percent of our US restaurants and nearly 65 percent globally. The thing about drive-thru is that no matter how good you are, you can always get better. In our top markets, our drive-thru service times are now about 30 seconds faster than they were two years ago. We think we can get even faster—and we’re also thinking about ways that the digital experience might work in drive-thru. So, for example, if you are a customer using the app, maybe you have a dedicated drive-thru lane.

How McDonald’s restaurant layouts might change postpandemic

We expect to roll out our loyalty program, called MyMcDonald’s Rewards, in the US later this year and in all our major markets over the next couple of years. The MyMcDonald’s platform is essentially an ecosystem of all the things that you can do via digital touchpoints with McDonald’s—think mobile ordering, payments, delivery, rewards, or deals. I’m excited about all the opportunities for us there.

One thing we’ve learned during the pandemic is that if we simplify our business and focus on what we’re great at—like drive-thru and our core menu items—there’s a fantastic benefit for our customers. We’ve seen our customer service scores go up across the globe. We’ve seen our productivity and our restaurant-level margins improve. It was a great reminder about the embedded cost of complexity in our P&L. It wasn’t obvious where that complexity was, but now that we’ve discovered it, we’re committed to keeping our business simple.

Postpandemic, I don’t think dine-in will come back to where it was. In Europe, dine-in was 65 percent of our business in some markets; it might be less postpandemic. So dine-in will still be important, but I think takeaway channels, like delivery, drive-thru, and order ahead with curbside pickup, will stay elevated for the foreseeable future.

Another “D” worth remembering? DISTRIBUTION. McDonald’s is a master at supply chain—it has to be with over 14,000 locations scattered around the U.S. And, with all those locations, 95% have a drive-thru—comprising 90% of its business during the pandemic. Who do you think is well-positioned to handle the next one? And since we’re talking survival, who do you think was there for the front-line workers in the thick of things? And who do you think has the most pull to get supplies—your local food truck?

Let’s go back to 2018 when McDonald’s literally reinvented its staple Quarter Pounder (w/ cheese please!), choosing to eschew frozen patties for fresh, never frozen, ones. Already a monster in terms of “cold chain distribution,” it needed to guarantee the quarter lbs. were never frozen and ALWAYS delivered mouthwateringly hot with pickles, mustard, onions, and ketchup, all within 14-days—or they weren’t served at all. It was a huge success. And with blockchain, I’d imagine they know a thing or two about, for example, which truck broke down or made great time with its delivery. Don’t you?

Action Line: Remember, when it comes to technology if it’s free—you’re the product (Google and Facebook). There are more ways to harness blockchain than bitcoin. For me, I like companies that invest their own capital to harness tech and bring value to your table: just as long as they pay that McDividend.

P.S. Watch how a major food distributor assures its customers about hamburger quality and freshness.

IBM writes:

California-based Golden State Foods (GSF) provides hamburger patties, sausage, produce and an array of other products to the food industry, retail outlets and quick service restaurants around the world. Its customers include 100 brands and, on any given day, its products are served to customers at 120,000 restaurants.

Food safety and quality are core to the company’s internal processes and brand reputation. But tracking exactly what happens to beef from farm to fork in near real-time is not easy for any company. The beef supply chain behind every hamburger is highly segmented, involving ranches, feedlots, packers, processors, distribution centers and restaurants.

Each business keeps its own meticulous records. Software systems designed to connect them, however, typically require a lot of manual inputs, are prone to errors, and encounter inherent delays. And those systems are not designed to track one of the most essential elements in the beef’s journey—the temperature at which it’s kept.

GSF partnered with IBM to pilot a solution that used radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to automatically track fresh beef’s movement through one of its hamburger patty production plants to shipping, to the distribution center and finally delivery to one of three restaurants. IoT devices monitored the temperature at strategic points in the process, and automatically uploaded it to IBM Food Trust’s blockchain, making the data available in near-real time to everyone using it.

GSF’s pilot demonstrated the importance of improved precision and speed in the supply chain, including benefits such as reduction in shipping and labor costs, less waste, higher quality, and improved product rotation management and inventory optimization.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)

  • BE VIGILANT: The Rats Are Scurrying in These Rough Markets - May 17, 2022
  • Young Americans Fall in Love with Farming, Again - May 17, 2022
  • Your Survival Guy: “Sell in May, Buy After Labor Day?” - May 16, 2022
  • Is Your Financial Advisor Hiding the Truth About ESG? - May 13, 2022
  • CRYPTO: Has the Fire Gone Out? - May 13, 2022

If you enjoyed this post, email it to a friend:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

Money 101

Trending

  • CHAOS: Don’t Sacrifice an Entire Retirement with This Mistake
  • ESG Is Another Way to Attack Conservative Principles
  • LOOKING FOR LIBERTY: Retirees Revive Rural America
  • You Can Do Better than Mutual Funds and ETFs with Your Cash
  • Biden Admin ALREADY Distancing Itself from Controversial Disinformation Czar
  • Your Survival Guy: Make Your Bed and The Hero Code
  • MARKET CHAOS: This May Take Time, Here’s How to Prepare
  • PANOPTICON: The Deep State's Expanded Civilian Surveillance
  • Joe Biden is Weaponizing Your 401(k) Against You
  • RAGE GAUGE: INVESTOR CARNAGE—Losing Control of Your Money

Must Reads

  • Survival: Lost in the Woods Bending the Map
  • HELLO: “How’s It Going? I Don’t Know Anything”
  • Investment Advice: Sticking with the Four-Year-Olds
  • Why You Can’t Afford to Miss the Boat
  • Your Survival Guy’s 2022 Super States: #1 New Hampshire
  • Your Job as an Investor Is Not What You Think
  • Why Mutual Funds and ETFs No Longer Work
  • Parents Are the New Tea Party. Bad Schools Are the New High Taxes.
  • The Masters of the Universe Align Themselves with CHINA Using YOUR Money?
  • Your Best State on Guns, Plus the 8th Wonder of the World
Only if You’re Serious
See Who's Missing the Boat
Key West Summer Camp in March
How Can You Save Money for Your Grandchild
Your Survival Guy's Fishing Stories
Money 101
Pandemic Creates Virtual Panopticon
Emergency Water Storage
Find Freedom in America
Second Amendment
Great Reset
Financial Independence, Retire Early
Richard  Young Reports
How You Can Save Money for Your Grandchild
Why Fidelity is Number One
The Best States for Survival
You Invest, They Win
Escape the City
Why Vanguard is Too Big for YOU
Island Life

Copyright © 2022 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.