REALIDAD PROBLEMÁTICA

For the Potato That Qualifies, McDonald's Has a Slicer, Sprayer, Drier—and Ruler

BY MEG COX

OAK BROOK, ILL. 2/8/82

eep within the high-rise confines of McDonald's Corp. headquarters, inside his "war room," Chairman Fred Turner ponders a weighty business issue: the fate of five Idaho potatoes. The potatoes have been transplanted from their American homeland to a field in far-off Holland. Delicate negotiations with the government of the Netherlands

preceded the move; eight months in Dutch quarantine followed before the potatoes could be planted. "God, I hope they didn't die," Mr. Turner exclaims.

Lower-level McDonald's operatives are asked to check. Alas, the news is bad. The five potatoes, estranged from their native land, have fallen victim to a virulent foreign potato virus. Once again, McDonald's Corp.'s costly, 10-year struggle to take its favorite source of French-fried potatoes to Europe has been thwarted.

Thwarted but not defeated. This company didn't get to be king of fast food by taking French fries lightly. The attention McDonald's lavishes on the spindly side order suggests something approaching a corporate obsession.

And why not? French fries currently pour more than $1 billion a year into McDonald's cash registers, nearly 20% of annual revenue.

They are the most profitable food served under the Golden Arches.

Seven of every 10 customers arriving after the breakfast hour order fries.

To keep them that way, McDonald's has spelled out no fewer than 60 specifications a strip of potato has to meet to make it into the fry-ing basket. To frustrate imitators, it has a patent on the precise com-bination of steps in making its fries. The restaurants even use a spe-cial blend of frying oil. Its name: Interstate 47.

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Now, frying is important, but what good is it if you don't have a sturdy potato to begin with? At McDonald's the tuber of choice is the russet Burbank. "People think all potatoes are alike, but they aren't," says B i l l Atchley, the chief of McDonald's crew of spud scouts. He explains: "A russet Burbank potato has a distinctive taste and a higher ratio of solids to water, which makes for crispier fries."

There are plenty of russet Burbanks in the U.S., but overseas is an-other matter. Mr. Atchley recently returned from the Philippines, where he spent much of his time on his hands and knees in the dirt trying to teach farmers to plant the right kind of potatoes. "If we can grow these potatoes in the Philippines, we'll learn a lot about how to do it in other tropical countries," he says.

But the big target is Europe. No russet Burbanks are grown there, and the Common Market doesn't allow potato imports. Never mind that the Continent offers several hundred other varieties; Mr. Turner says they are small and yellow and low in solids, producing, he adds with distaste, "small and soggy" French fries.

The state of the art in French-fry making today can be seen at the J.

R. Simplot potato factory in Caldwell, Idaho, which processes a good portion of the billion potatoes McDonald's uses each year. "Mac fries," like the ones Simplot prepares for other companies, begin their journey on an assembly line, where women in aprons pluck out the bad potatoes. Like the others, those going to McDonald's are chopped, prefried and frozen.

But there are subtle differences. Other fries are blanched, or quick-scalded, in water; McDonald's has its steamed, figuring that water carries off flavor and nutrients. All the fries in the assembly line are prefried, then dried; but those going to McDonald's are dried at higher heat, to make them chewy. The time and the heat are covered by the patent.

Nor is McDonald's indifferent to the amount of moisture that slips away between the frying and the drying. Company food scientists monitor this. They call it "drier-frier weight loss."

Else.where on the Simplot production line, other people's fries are dipped in sugar to make them brown better. Mac fries get doused in sugar too, but they are sprayed rather than dipped. Spraying the sugar on makes the fries brown unevenly, the company believes, and that makes them look more natural.

In looks, though, color isn't everything. Fries have to be the right length, too. What hungry diner wants to look into his bag and find a bunch of little stubby fries? McDonald's is ruthless about length:

40% of all fries must be between two inches and three inches long;

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another 40% must be over three inches; the other 20%—well, it doesn't hurt to have a few stubby ones.

McDonald's is convinced all this trouble pays off. It says a 1975 telephone survey showed that Mac fries were the favorite of 70% of those called.

Even some gourmets like them. "I think McDonald's fries are re-markably good," says television chef Julia Child. "They're cooked in extremely fresh fat." Nutritionists tend to be less enthusiastic.

Isobel Contento, a nutrition professor at Columbia University in New York, says, "About half the calories in French fries come from fat, there are very few vitamins, and you'd feel a whole lot fuller eating a comparable amount of green vegetables."

WAYNE STAYSKAL Courtesy Chicago Tribune

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Across the state in Hills, Iowa, near Iowa City, last December a farmer killed his wife, a man he had bought land from, his banker, and finally him-self. At the time of the tragedy, the