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This May Be McDonald’s Menu’s Most Unusual Item

Fast-food giant McDonald’s usually plays it safe by adding barbecue sauce or a new cheese to a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder. Not this time.

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Fast-food giant McDonald's usually plays it safe by adding barbecue sauce or a new cheese to a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder. Not this time.

McDonald's (MCD) - Get Free Report, at least in the U.S., tends to play it very safe with its menu and limited-time offers. 

Restaurant Brands International's (QSR) - Get Free Report Burger King endlessly releases new, often super-weird, versions of its iconic Whopper and pioneered Chicken Fries, Satisfries, and the unique Mac n' Cheetos, McDonald's tends to stay basic.

Essentially, McDonald's plays like a soccer team that has a 1-0 lead. It doesn't need to be aggressive because it's the clear market leader. The chain has leaned into ideas like celebrity meals and menu hacks, which don't require new ingredients or place any stress on its kitchen.

In a broad sense, McDonald's has made smart choices when it comes to being conservative. Its franchise operators push back whenever the chain wants to complicate the menu. That's why the company has not brought back Snack Wraps or All-Day Breakfast even as customers openly clamor for both things.

It's a boring recipe -- but it's one that has worked. While Burger King has focused on being outrageous, McDonald's has focused on execution and building its digital reach.

Again, that's the case in the U.S. If you look at the Golden Arches menu in Japan, however, you occasionally find innovations that make the wildest Whopper look about as exciting as a Big Mac with an extra slice of cheese.

YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP via Getty Images

McDonald's Japan Has a Very Unusual Sandwich     

Sometimes McDonald's adds menu items in global markets that seem as if they'd fit really well in the U.S. 

The Fuwa-toro Egg Demi-glace Gracoro is not one of them.

Gracoro is a  McDonald's-created word that mashed up “gratin” and “croquette.” A croquette is a sort of dumpling that uses a binder combined with a filling that's then deep fried. 

Usually, a thick sauce, mashed potatoes, or flour is the binder and pretty much anything is a possible filling. Gratin is a broiled dish topped with bread crumbs. Potatoes au gratin is the best-known example, but anything can be under the golden, broiled crust.

That's a lot of words and cooking techniques for a fast-food sandwich, but the Fuwa-toro Egg Demi-glace Gracoro is not your typical McDonald's offering.

"This is a burger with a croquette filled with the mixture of macaroni and white sauce that Japan calls gratin. There’s also shrimp inside the croquette, which seems like an odd thing to exclude from a product name where brevity clearly wasn’t the goal," Japan Today reported.

The sandwich has been offered in a variety of versions, but this latest take, which is available only in Japan, comes topped with a "fluffy" egg and a demi-glace sauce.   

McDonald's May Need More Daring in the U.S. 

While McDonald's has been bold around the world, its recent U.S. promotions include the fake retirement of the McRib, adult Happy Meals featuring collectible toys, and the return of Halloween buckets. 

None of these promotions have involved menu innovation and it's actually hard to think of the last time McDonald's introduced something new or daring in its home market.

That's not an accident. The pandemic led the chain to redouble its focus on efficiency so it can be a bigger player in delivery while optimizing its takeout model. Those efforts worked -- but they have enabled Wendy's (WEN) - Get Free Report to build a breakfast business, adding another contender to McDonald's throne.

In addition, McDonald's has largely ceded the new product/innovation headline to its rivals. Each move on its own doesn't really hurt the king of the fast-food market but taken together, it could be death by a thousand paper cuts. 

The U.S. may not need (or want) the Fuwa-toro Egg Demi-glace Gracoro, but it could use something new from under the Golden Arches.

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John Lewis relies too heavily on its heritage – here’s what it could do instead

The company has returned to profit by making cuts, but there are things it could do to reinvent itself.

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Road to recovery? Jevanto Productions/Shutterstock

In a tricky economic climate, the British department store John Lewis has managed to deliver some good news. The retail partnership – owned by its 80,000 employees – posted pre-tax profits of £56 million after a £234 million loss the year before.

The positive announcement was somewhat tarnished by the fact that those employees (known as partners) would not receive a bonus for the second year in a row. There were also hints of job cuts.

But what more could this giant of UK retail, which also owns Waitrose supermarkets, do to endure its survival? Does its increasing reliance on grocery sales mean its own brand has become less valuable?

For over 160 years on the high street, John Lewis has worked hard on that brand. Its slogan (scrapped in 2022) about being “never knowingly undersold” was well known, it remains a trusted supplier of an extensive range of household hoods, rates highly for customer service, and runs Christmas TV adverts which have became a media event in themselves.

In doing all of those things, John Lewis seemed to be in a much better place than its rivals. BHS (founded in 1928) and Debenhams (1778) have disappeared from the high street. House of Fraser (1849) was taken over and has a much-reduced physical presence.

John Lewis’s nearest rival, Marks & Spencer (1884), is now doing well, but only after it underwent a fairly brutal restructuring which involved cutting thousands of jobs during the pandemic, closing 67 stores, and slashing its operations in France.

So John Lewis’s “brand heritage” – its history, tradition and pedigree – has worked pretty well for a pretty long time. But its recent return to profit was the combined effort of reinvesting and streamlining, according to some reports.

Also known as “trimming the fat” in the business world, the retailer’s streamlining endeavours consisted of cutting more than 1,500 jobs, and closing underperforming stores, such as the branch in Sheffield, which had served residents for nearly 80 years and was much mourned, including by my own mother-in-law.

It has also been reported that more job cuts are imminent, with up to 11,000 jobs to go in the next five years.

And perhaps these measures highlight some of the harsh realities of running a department store in the always-open and effortless world of online shopping. Maybe employees (even those considered partners, as under John Lewis’s employee-ownership model) have become expendable.

Maybe physical stores, where consumers go to explore and seek advice, have become expendable. Maybe all traditions are expendable when they are not commercially viable.

People first

Yet the world of retail is filled with examples of heritage brands reinventing themselves to stay relevant, buoyant and competitive.

John Lewis will need to do the same if it wants to retain its legacy on the British high street. And it could do worse than taking a leaf out of Waitrose’s playbook.

For the company’s return to profit was largely due to the buoyant sales generated by Waitrose supermarkets, which increased by 4%. The department store business meanwhile, suffered a 2% fall.

Part of Waitrose’s success comes from providing a sense of indulgence and enjoyment – including healthy food – through carefully curated and often locally sourced products. It works closely with local farmers, supports regional suppliers (an approach that has also contributed to M&S’s success), and reinvests in stores and product offers.

Essentially, as part of UK’s grocery sector, Waitrose extended its partnership ethos to include people and groups beyond the shop walls – to build a “local retail ecosystem” that promotes and leverages a community spirit around their stores.

M&S shop front.
Appealing to appetites. Simon Vayro/Shutterstock

John Lewis department stores could try and do something similar. They could focus more on products that help customers live healthier and more active lives, and which are relevant to their interests. They could sell products created by local small businesses, and make a determined approach to be a supportive presence in the regions they serve.

Research suggests that heritage brands benefit from having a moral standing – when they show they care about the people they make money from, the local communities they operate in, and the people they employ.

So perhaps John Lewis should make moral values a part of its evolving heritage. It needs to show it cares not just for the people who work for the company directly, but also the people on whom it relies for success – the customers – and people it can build new relationships with. All of them could prove critical to its future success.

Kokho Jason Sit is affiliated with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

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AI can help predict whether a patient will respond to specific tuberculosis treatments, paving way for personalized care

People have been battling tuberculosis for thousands of years, and drug-resistant strains are on the rise. Analyzing large datasets with AI can help humanity…

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Tuberculosis typically infects the lungs but can spread to the rest of the body. stockdevil/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest bacterial infection. It afflicted over 10 million people and took 1.3 million lives in 2022. These numbers are predicted to increase dramatically because of the spread of multidrug-resistant TB.

Why does one TB patient recover from the infection while another succumbs? And why does one drug work in one patient but not another, even if they have the same disease?

People have been battling TB for millennia. For example, researchers have found Egyptian mummies from 2400 BCE that show signs of TB. While TB infections occur worldwide, the countries with the highest number of multidrug-resistant TB cases are Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Russia.

The COVID-19 pandemic set back progress in addressing many health conditions, including TB.

Researchers predict that the ongoing war in Ukraine will result in an increase in multidrug-resistant TB cases because of health care disruptions. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced access to TB diagnosis and treatment, reversing decades of progress worldwide.

Rapidly and holistically analyzing available medical data can help optimize treatments for each patient and reduce drug resistance. In our recently published research, my team and I describe a new AI tool we developed that uses worldwide patient data to guide more personalized and effective treatment of TB.

Predicting success or failure

My team and I wanted to identify what variables can predict how a patient responds to TB treatment. So we analyzed more than 200 types of clinical test results, medical imaging and drug prescriptions from over 5,000 TB patients in 10 countries. We examined demographic information such as age and gender, prior treatment history and whether patients had other conditions. Finally, we also analyzed data on various TB strains, such as what drugs the pathogen is resistant to and what genetic mutations the pathogen had.

Looking at enormous datasets like these can be overwhelming. Even most existing AI tools have had difficulty analyzing large datasets. Prior studies using AI have focused on a single data type – such as imaging or age alone – and had limited success predicting TB treatment outcomes.

We used an approach to AI that allowed us to analyze a large and diverse number of variables simultaneously and identify their relationship to TB outcomes. Our AI model was transparent, meaning we can see through its inner workings to identify the most meaningful clinical features. It was also multimodal, meaning it could interpret different types of data at the same time.

Microscopy image of rod-shaped TB bacteria stained green
Mycobacterium tuberculosis spreads through aerosol droplets. NIAID/NIH via Flickr

Once we trained our AI model on the dataset, we found that it could predict treatment prognosis with 83% accuracy on newer, unseen patient data and outperform existing AI models. In other words, we could feed a new patient’s information into the model and the AI would determine whether a specific type of treatment will either succeed or fail.

We observed that clinical features related to nutrition, particularly lower BMI, are associated with treatment failure. This supports the use of interventions to improve nourishment, as TB is typically more prevalent in undernourished populations.

We also found that certain drug combinations worked better in patients with certain types of drug-resistant infections but not others, leading to treatment failure. Combining drugs that are synergistic, meaning they enhance each other’s potency in the lab, could result in better outcomes. Given the complex environment in the body compared with conditions in the lab, it has so far been unclear whether synergistic relationships between drugs in the lab hold up in the clinic. Our results suggest that using AI to weed out antagonistic drugs, or drugs that inhibit or counteract each other, early in the drug discovery process can avoid treatment failures down the line.

Ending TB with the help of AI

Our findings may help researchers and clinicians meet the World Health Organization’s goal to end TB by 2035, by highlighting the relative importance of different types of clinical data. This can help prioritize public health efforts to mitigate TB.

While the performance of our AI tool is promising, it isn’t perfect in every case, and more training is needed before it can be used in the clinic. Demographic diversity can be high within a country and may even vary between hospitals. We are working to make this tool more generalizable across regions.

Our goal is to eventually tailor our AI model to identify drug regimens suitable for individuals with certain conditions. Instead of a one-size-fits-all treatment approach, we hope that studying multiple types of data can help physicians personalize treatments for each patient to provide the best outcomes.

Sriram Chandrasekaran receives funding from the US National Institutes of Health.

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IVI starts technology transfer to Biological E. Limited to manufacture oral cholera vaccine for India and global markets

  Credit: IVI IVI will complete the technology transfer by 2025 Oral Cholera Vaccine to be manufactured by Biological E. Limited for India and international…

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Credit: IVI

  • IVI will complete the technology transfer by 2025
  • Oral Cholera Vaccine to be manufactured by Biological E. Limited for India and international markets

 

March 20, 2024, SEOUL, Republic of Korea and HYDERABAD, India — The International Vaccine Institute (IVI), an international organization with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health, today announced that it has commenced a technology transfer of simplified Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV-S) to Biological E. Limited (BE), a leading India-based Vaccines and Pharmaceutical Company.

 

Following the signing of a technology license agreement in November last year, IVI has begun providing the technical information, know-how, and materials to produce OCV-S at BE facilities and will continue to support necessary clinical development and regulatory approvals. IVI and BE entered this partnership during an unprecedented surge of cholera outbreaks worldwide and aim to increase the volume of low-cost cholera vaccine in India as well as the global public market.

 

IVI will complete the technology transfer by 2025 and the oral cholera vaccine will be manufactured for India and international markets by Biological E. Limited.

 

Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI, said: “In an era of heightened risk of poverty-associated infectious diseases such as cholera, the world needs a sustainable source of high-quality, affordable vaccines and committed manufacturers to supply them. We are pleased to partner with Biological E., a company with a proven history of making life-saving vaccines accessible globally, to address this supply gap and protect communities from this deadly, though preventable, disease.”

 

Ms. Mahima Datla, Managing Director, Biological E. Limited, said: “We are glad to be in collaboration with IVI for the manufacture of simplified Oral Cholera Vaccine. Our efforts are aimed to not only combat the disease but to also be part of a sustained legacy of innovation, collaboration, and health stewardship. Together with IVI, we are happy to be shaping a healthier and more resilient future by making this vaccine accessible globally.”

 

This technology transfer and licensing agreement is the sixth of its kind for IVI, transferring such technology to manufacturers in India, the Republic of Korea, Bangladesh, and South Africa. All these partnerships have led to or seek to achieve, pre-qualification (PQ) from the World Health Organization, a designation that enables global agencies such as UNICEF to procure the vaccine for the global market. BE already has 9 vaccines with WHO PQ in its portfolio, and IVI and BE will pursue WHO PQ for OCV-S as well, following national licensure in India.

 

Dr. Julia Lynch, Director of IVI’s Cholera Program, said: “The cholera situation is dire, and the availability and use of oral cholera vaccine is an essential part of a multifaceted approach to cholera control and prevention, especially as outbreaks increase and the global vaccine supply remains strained. With more manufacturers like BE entering the market, the future supply situation looks strong. IVI remains committed to ensuring the availability of the oral cholera vaccine and to developing new and improved vaccines that are equally safe, effective, and affordable and made around the world, for the world.”

 

OCV-S is a simplified formulation of OCV with the potential to lower production costs while increasing production capacity for current and aspiring OCV manufacturers. IVI’s development of OCV-S and ongoing technology transfers are part of an institutional strategy to confront cholera with 3 main goals: 1) Ensure supply of OCV 2) Improve cholera vaccines 3) Support OCV use and introduction. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been supporting IVI’s cholera program since 2000 and is funding this latest technology transfer to BE.

 

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About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.

IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that also achieved WHO prequalification in early 2024.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, an Africa Regional Office in Rwanda, a Country Office in Austria, and a Country and Project Office in Kenya. IVI additionally co-founded the Hong Kong Jockey Club Global Health Institute in Hong Kong and hosts Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

 

 

About Biological E. Limited

Biological E. Limited (BE), a Hyderabad-based Pharmaceuticals & Biologics Company founded in 1953, is the first private sector biological products company in India and the first pharmaceutical company in Southern India. BE develops, manufactures and supplies vaccines and therapeutics. BE supplies its vaccines to more than 130 countries and its therapeutic products are sold in India, the USA and Europe. BE currently has 8 WHO-prequalified vaccines and 10 USFDA approved Generic Injectables in its portfolio. Recently, BE has received Emergency Use Listing (EUL) from the WHO for CORBEVAX®, the COVID-19 vaccine. Recently, DCGI has approved BE’S 14-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine.

In recent years, BE has embarked on new initiatives for organizational expansion such as developing specialty injectable products for global markets as a means to manufacture APIs sustainably and developing novel vaccines for the global market.

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MEDIA CONTACTS

IVI

Aerie Em, Global Communications & Advocacy Manager
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@ivi.int

 

Biological E. Limited

K. Vijay Amruth Raj
Email: Vijay.Kammari@biologicale.com
www.biologicale.com/news


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