Burger king McDonald's rolls out the rocket (Feature)

By Clare Byrne Feb 9, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Paris - Something is cooking at McDonald's in France - and, for once, it's not burgers and fries.

The US fast-food empire is testing a new concept in the Paris business district of La Defense. It's bye-bye burgers, hello 'bio' (as the French term anything healthy) as McDonald's rides the healthy eating trend with its first ever salad bar.

Even Jose Bove, the charismatic French cheese farmer who demolished a McDonald's restaurant in 1999 to protest over what he saw as 'US food imperialism', might be loving this McDo - as McDonald's is locally known.

It was Bove, with his iconic walrus moustache, who coined the term 'malbouffe' (bad food) to describe mass-produced, nutritionally poor fare, the global spread of which he blamed on US multinationals like McDonald's.

Hero though he was in France, for sticking it to the multinational, Bove never succeeded in curbing his compatriot's appetite for burgers and fries.

After the US, it is the French - a people who pride themselves on their waifish waistlines - who are McDonald's' best customers in monetary terms.

McDonald's more than 1,160 outlets in France turned over 3.9 billion euros in 2010, an 8-per-cent increase in 2009, as the company grows its non-burger business and tailors its menu to local tastebuds.

Around 120 McDonald's restaurants in France have McCafe counters selling hot drinks and pastries, much like a Starbucks.

As for 'le Big Mac', the French version comes with such local options as goats cheese, blue cheese or black pepper sauce.

And now the burger king is rolling out the rocket.

With salad bars gaining popularity in Paris as a healthier lunch option to the traditional brasserie meal or baguette sandwich, McDonald's is stealing a march on the fast-food market with a green McCafe.

Sitting at a long wooden table dotted with potted plants and bunches of tied twigs, Sylvain Petiteau and his Colombian colleague Luz Cely tuck into big bowls of salad.

'It's very tasty,' Petiteau, a geologist, says with relish. 'The little seasoned tomatoes are particularly good.'

The two employees of French nuclear energy giant Areva are regulars at the McCafe Live, since it opened, with little fanfare, in November.

Cely, a vegetarian, describes herself as the antithesis of the typical McDonald's customer.

'I am the type of person who condemns the production of food on a mass scale, like in the US,' she says. 'But the ingredients here are good.'

The principle is simple. First you select your salad leaves, then you choose your toppings, like you would an ice-cream, from a array of tubs at the counter. The choices includes feta, chicken pieces, sun-dried tomatoes and artichokes.

A 'chopper' then minces the mix, tosses it in a seasoning of the customer's choice and serves it in a bowl or a wrap (sandwich).

The average salad comes out at around 8 euros - cheaper than a regular restaurant meal but more expensive than a Big Mac meal.

The regular McDonald's on the other side of La Defense is heaving at lunchtime with young office workers wolfing down burgers.

The atmosphere in the smaller McCafe is genteel by contrast.

Blown-up photographs of crispy heads of lettuce and other ingredients hang on the wall, the lighting is soft, the music jazzy and there's no smell of chip fat.

'The feedback is good,' Louis Esnon, the McCafe's 26-year-old director, says enthusiastically.

The typical McCafe Live client is 'an executive, or a senior executive' aged between 25 and 40, he says.

McDonald's France refused all requests for comment on the café, on the basis that it was 'too early to draw conclusions'.

Thomas Battistini, co-founder of Jour, a French chain of 17 salad bars, said he was glad to see a food giant enter the market, believing it would grow overall demand without endangering his business.

Meanwhile, McDonald's France is also shaking up its service.

The chain has rolled out table service in 50 restaurants, to reward people who order from touch-screen computer stations. By the end of next year it aims to have eradicated queues altogether.

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