Page 181 - Bus101FlipBook

CH 17] Business 101 17-5

for the community to gather. Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, and other fast-food
restaurants create place utility by opening franchises in locations convenient to their
customers. Coca-Cola has in its marketing plan that no consumer will be more than
100 feet away from a Coca-Cola; place utility is a part of their marketing plan.
Exchanging cash to the retailer for goods and services is an exchange of
ownership, from the store owner to their customer. Whenever one deals with the ownership utility
ownership of goods and services, one is dealing with ownership utility, which Utility created by arranging for
transfer of ownership at the
includes the pride of ownership as with real estate, or that new car you purchased time of purchase.
even if it were previously owned; it represents a passage of self sufficiency. Firms
are organized to arranging for an orderly transfer of ownership, selling and creating
ownership utility. Retailers create ownership utility by accepting currency or credit-
card payments in the transfer of goods.
Let us consider how these utilities are combined to fulfill the want satisfying
characteristics of a Big Mac. Think of the elements that make up this popular
sandwich: Two all-beef patties, cheese, lettuce, pickles with a secret sauce, all on a
sesame seed bun. What does it take to have this sandwich available to you?
There is Kansas wheat that make up the bun, which is ground and sent to a bun
making factory, and just prior to the baking has sesame seeds sprinkled on the top of
the bun. This bun is cut twice so that it has three parts and accepts two beef patties.
The secret sauce has mayonnaise, ketchup, spices, and pickle chunks in it. Some
think that this is a Thousand Island Dressing for salads, but remember McDonalds
will not reveal the ingredients for its secret sauce. Pickling cucumbers are grown in
the United States on approximately 125,000 acres annually in 30 states, from Florida
to California and from Michigan to Texas; and processed for the pickles you will
enjoy in your sandwich. Lettuce is a warm weather crop that is grown from
Massachusetts to Washington, and from California to Florida. However, The Yuma
area of Arizona, including the Imperial Valley across the California border, produces
about 90 percent of all this leafy vegetable for the United States from November to
March, and is shipped across the nation. McDonalds Big Mac
When it comes to cheese, many of us think of Wisconsin, and few will think of
California, the number two cheese producing state. Fluid milk from the dairies of
these two states produce more cheese than all other cheese producing states
combined. Regardless, the fluid milk from dairies must be processed and shipped
across the country. It takes about 10 pounds of fluid milk to produce one pound of
cheese. The number one producer of cheese in the United States is Nestle USA
($14.1 billion). However, Nestle does not supply all of the cheese used by
McDonald’s, who also source their cheese from the many Diary cooperatives in the 17
United States that also process milk for cheese.
When it comes to the ground beef in the Big Mac, many of us may think of the
cattle ranches of Texas or Wyoming, or the feedlots in Kansas or Colorado as its
source. The reality is that the ‘all-beef’ (bovine) patties come from a grade of cattle Bovine: relating to or
termed ‘cutters and canners’. The animals that fit this classification are typically affecting cattle. These include
spent dairy cows that have come to the end of their milking productivity and are sent Bos Tarsus and Bos Indicus.
Common beef breeds include
through the meat market channels for disassembly and processing. This grade of Hereford, Short Horn,
cattle is also less expensive than the choice beef you will purchase from your local Aberdeen Angus, Brahma,
grocer to bar-b-que. The beef in the Big Mac sandwich is a recipe formula that has Santa Gertrudis. Common
fat added to the mixing that make the meat juicer and more flavorful for the patties dairy breeds include Holstein,
Guernsey, Jersey, and
you will enjoy. Ayrshire.
With this extended description for the Big Mac, now consider that you have to
grow all of the elements to make this sandwich. How much time, effort, and cost
would you need to invest through your efforts to have it in the form that you expect
and are familiar with? Will your efforts create the same utilities as McDonalds?
The utilities being created are Form, Time, Place, and Ownership. Form utility is
achieved with the sandwich being in the form that you expect. Time utility is
accomplished with your arrival at the store, order your sandwich and the store

Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve Copyrighted Material