McDonalds burger buns and a few other (minor) things. (pt1)

Published: 2012-04-17

Author: Teddi

I’ll mention it now that we’ll be attempting to update the blog in more bitesized chunks. Apparently people are enjoying the articles posted here however the frequency of it is a bit low seeing as we tend to end up writing large posts.  Please leave a comment or feedback  though if you enjoy / disagree / whatever with things in this blog. At the end of the day we want this to be an enjoyable experience for everyone so without some form of feedback it could (at times) end up skewed.

Gathering is a staple activity in our world of today, spanning millions / billions of various currencies in different industries. Be it a child collecting pebbles on a beach to a farmer actively growing and collecting wheat it’s there in our daily lives yet many people actually never think about the complexities that actually goes into the production line of products. To elaborate on how far this really goes, lets break it down with your average McDonalds burger bun.

Burger Buns /  Burger Bread (whichever you prefer) Wheat grown by farmer -> Picked via combine harvester (gathering occurs here) ->(sold on and) Sent to a flour mill where it’s graded and kept until it’s ground into flour -> When wheat is required, it goes through a lengthy purification process that in itself is a system -> The wheat is finally ground (and in some cases enriched) -> The flour is then packed into various containers (depending on the market and type of flour) -> Flour goes through basic health & safety  / QC -> Any byproducts / waste is either destroyed or reused (such as Bran, which is a byproduct). -> Shipped off to factories to then be processed.

I’ll pause the production line here just so we can actually look at how elaborate this process is; that’s 9 steps which for the sake of this blog I’ve actually condensed quite heavily and as a result we can see just for a burger bun this is no simple process. Obviously McDonalds don’t really have any control over the process at this point (unless they own the farms which I don’t believe they do). That burger bun which isn’t even a bun yet has probably gone through a process which has taken about 2-3 weeks.

At this point the wheat will be introduced into a mixture (consisting of water, sugar, salt and your staples to making buns / bread) until the mixture is ready and is then squirted out of the funnel, sent along a basic conveyor belt to have seeds dropped on it (usually the top of the bun is glazed so the seeds won’t drop off) followed by being thrown into a large container, sorted so there’s two halves and then they’re frozen, ready to be shipped to the local McDonalds store (yay frozen food).

I’m not going to go through every single component of how certain foods are made, that you should  have learned when you were eight however it does show how lengthy even a basic burger bun can be to make.

Tomorrow I’ll actually get into how this process will affect Roleplay and how this will affect any industry that does crop up.

Discussion Thread: http://www.bbservers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?7868-McDonalds-burger-buns-and-a-few-other-(minor)-things-(pt1)