In China, where there is a McDonald's, there must be a KFC, but where there is a KFC, there is not necessarily a McDonald's. In comparison, McDonald's is more picky, but it is this pickyness, coupled with McDonald's superb ability to select sites and enhance the value of the surrounding real estate so that it is step by step towards the peak.
In the world's top 500 companies, there are two companies on the list that Zhang Yong, the leader of Hai Di Lao, sees as role models and repeats over and over again: McDonald's, and Sysco, a U.S. food and beverage supply chain company.
Besides McDonald's and Sysco, there are only four other food and beverage-related companies on the list. One wonders why there are so few restaurant companies in the top 500.
Revenue from restaurants accounts for only 0.06 percent of the Fortune 500's total
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The good news in the Fortune 500 list is that China*** has 110 companies on the list (including seven from Taiwan), a number second only to the United States, and pig-killing powerhouse Wanzhou International (Double Huei) has made the list for the first time.
The bad news is that companies around the world have had a bad time over the past year, with only 137 companies posting positive revenue growth and all others posting negative growth.
The Fortune 500 has long been seen as a barometer of the health of the global economy, and the fact that such a large swath of companies had negative growth in 2015 is a reflection of the global downturn, according to the list.
In the midst of the economic downturn, five of the six Fortune 500 companies in food and beverage-related industries in turn gained revenue and ranking. Together, those six companies generated $179.3 billion in revenue, or 0.06 percent of the 500's total revenue.