Daily Photo – McDonalds on Queen Street

While in Auckland, as I was wandering around the CBD, I called into McDonald’s. Not because I thought I’d get a nutritious, well-rounded meal, but because it was quick, convenient, and I wouldn’t have to think about it. It was while I was chopping my way through a Big Mac that I happened to notice a small sign saying that its New Zealand beef supplier produces nearly 500,000 beef patties per day for McDonald’s restaurants.

Thinking about this, I decided we could do a little maths to work out how many Big Macs are sold throughout New Zealand every day. Since McDonald’s produces a range of burgers that include Big Macs, Cheeseburgers, Quarter Pounders and Hamburgers, to name but a few, let’s assume 10% of those 500,000 beef patties end up in Big Macs. That would give us 50,000 patties going into Big Macs every day. Since a Big Mac uses two patties, that gives us 25,000 Big Macs being sold throughout New Zealand on a daily basis.

Doing a few quick calculations, that works out at about 9.1 million Big Macs being sold throughout New Zealand every year, or roughly 174,000 per week. That’s just over 1,000 every hour, or about 16 every minute.

So, by the time you finish reading this post, and spend another minute or so admiring a few photos, another 30 to 40 Big Macs have probably left a McDonald’s kitchen somewhere in New Zealand.

And suddenly, for reasons I’m not entirely sure I can justify, I feel like I’ve contributed something useful to society.