The Food That Built America (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Spoils of War - full transcript
- Previously on
"The Food That Built America."
A trailblazing businesswoman.
- Sorry to keep you waiting.
- Took the reins of
her father's cereal company.
And shrewdly
recognized the genius
of inventor Clarence Birdseye.
- I'm not interested in owning
three quarters of anything.
- Together, they
brought frozen food to America
and created an empire.
Now, chocolate
magnate Milton Hershey
faces a new threat from within.
- It's chaos out there.
Someone's gonna get killed.
- While a power struggle.
- I want 30%.
- Tears candy titans Frank
and Forrest Mars apart.
- This is my company.
- 30% or I walk out that door!
- And a
surprising alliance leads
to one of the most popular
chocolate candies on earth.
And as America goes
through radical changes,
two bold innovators
rise to new challenges,
transforming the restaurant
kitchen into an assembly line
that will make millions
and create a battle for
the McDonald's dynasty.
- Start working!
- And a maverick
Kentucky businessman
fights to carve out his legacy,
going from a gas station
kitchen to an American icon.
- For nearly 25 years, the
Hershey Company has been
the most lucrative candy
maker in the nation,
with profits from the
Hershey Bar, Hershey's Syrup,
and the Hershey's Kiss
growing every single year.
From $1,000,000 in sales in 1906
to over 20 million by 1920,
the modern equivalent of
more than 250 million.
Turning milk chocolate
from an unknown luxury
into an everyday
American staple.
- Hershey, this guy
who marketed chocolate
as an affordable indulgence
and gets a ton of money
and lives this success.
It's really very much the
story of American industry,
it just happens
to be the industry
of the milk chocolate bar.
And I think that that's
something easy to overlook.
- Milton Hershey was very
famous by this point in time.
He was the wealthiest man
in all of Pennsylvania.
And he really was the one
who popularized
confection in America,
who understood that candy
should be for everybody.
And he wanted to
reward his employees
for their hard work.
He built the town of Hershey,
a town with all the best
that a community could offer.
Swimming pools and theaters
and all kinds of
community activities.
- The Hershey Bar is one
of the most popular luxuries
in an era of wealth and
excess called the roaring 20s,
driven by an economic
boom in the aftermath
of the First World War.
- The United States is in
many ways the great victor
of World War I.
American factories
had become what fed
and clothed the world.
New York has become the
financial center of the world.
The 1920s are a period of
incredible American prosperity.
This is a period of
conspicuous consumption.
- The stock market was
going, profits were going.
People were feeling
they were rich
and this is the
way it's gonna be.
This idea came to a crushing end
in the autumn of 1929.
- In October 1929,
after a decade of
unprecedented growth,
the stock market plummets
over 25% in just two days,
with total losses
over $30 billion.
Eventually, almost
half of US banks fail
and tens of thousands of
businesses go bankrupt,
triggering the Great Depression.
- Within just a few short years,
more than 1/4 of
Americans are unemployed.
This is still a time
when there's largely
single earner homes.
Therefore, we might be talking
about the half the country
having no effective income
coming into their household.
This is really a
dire economic strike.
- The Hershey
Company sales crash
by a devastating 50%.
And the easiest way to cut costs
is to reduce the massive
3,000 person workforce
that lives in Hershey,
Pennsylvania, a reality not lost
on Hershey's second in
command, William Murrie.
- It was William
Murrie's job to make sure
that the factory was operating
to its best potential.
He was the one who made
sure the trains ran on time,
he was the one who made sure
that the workers were there.
- It ever worry you
that we're responsible
for keeping food
on their tables?
- Yeah, especially now.
To tell you the truth,
forecasts don't look good.
- I know.
But I don't care.
I don't wanna lay
off a single worker.
- Are you insane?
If we see even a 20% decrease--
- We have to find another
way to make it work.
- If you'll just look
at the bottom line,
there's no chance--
- Find another way.
- Industries are drying up
and small towns across
the country
are just feeling the hit.
Hershey was really worried
about the quality of life
for the people in the town.
He did not want that
to happen in Hershey.
His dream was to
create a community.
Beyond that, his dream
is creating a legacy.
- Bent on preserving his utopia,
Milton Hershey is determined
not to lay off a single worker.
Against William Murrie's advice.
Just a year after the
stock market crash,
things get even worse.
Severe drought hits
overfarmed land,
kicking up 12 million
pounds of dirt
in storms called
black blizzards,
crippling American agriculture.
- The Great Depression is
compounded in many ways
by an environmental
crisis as well.
The famous Dust Bowl,
where the entire top
level of productive soil
throughout most of the
Midwest blows away.
The farms are no longer usable
until the dirt comes back.
- In a national disaster,
Hershey sees an opportunity.
One of his most recent
creations, the Mr. Goodbar,
is packed with peanuts.
- Yeah.
These are good.
- In a stroke of genius,
he markets the bar as
a protein-rich meal
and sells two bars for a nickel,
the same low price as one.
- Milton Hershey
used to advertise
that the nutrition in a
bar of Hershey's Chocolate
was the equivalent
of a pound of meat.
When people can't afford food
but they can still afford
a nickel chocolate bar,
they're gonna spend their money
and get something to eat.
And then other candy makers
copied some of the same ideas.
There was a candy bar
called a Chicken Dinner.
And there was a candy bar
that was called Lunch Bar.
People did turn to confections
to help fill their stomachs.
- Hershey's brilliant
strategy works just in time
and he's able to keep
the company afloat.
He's forced to reduce
hours and cancel bonuses
but unlike nearly every other
company during the Depression,
he avoids layoffs.
- When the Great
Depression begins,
Milton Hershey is
somewhat of an anomaly
because he takes steps to ensure
that the workers
in his factory town
actually are still gonna be able
to enjoy a relatively
high degree of living.
- You're doing
a great job so far.
- Hershey saw himself
as a benevolent man,
as somebody who's actually
a champion of his employees.
- The Hershey
empire is once again stable.
For now.
There's only one other candy
maker in Hershey's league.
His biggest rival, Frank Mars.
He's spent years
creating legendary bars
like the Milky Way,
Snickers, and 3 Musketeers,
producing more than 20
million of them a year.
But Frank has a problem,
a brewing power struggle
with his son, Forrest.
- The Mars company had turned
into this enormous success
and Frank Mars was
extraordinarily wealthy.
Forrest Mars was a
born, bred entrepreneur
and he took credit
for these inventions
that came out of his
father's company.
- Frank and Forrest
reunited just six years ago,
after a lifetime
of estrangement.
And Forrest's aggressive
management style
opens a new rift.
- Forrest Mars had very,
very concrete ideas
about what made a
business successful.
They were unlike anybody else's.
Forrest tied workers'
salaries directly
to company performance.
If the business happened
to fall on hard times,
for whatever reason, your
paycheck also suffered.
- So Nick is the newest
member of our sales team.
Let's give him a warm welcome.
I, for one, am glad to have him.
You see, Nick, every other
salesman in this room
is worthless.
I mean, really, it's pathetic.
I'm not sure if they're lazy
or if they're just
not really trying
or if they're just
naturally stupid.
You see, Nick, this
is why you're here.
To turn this ugly red ink
into a nice beautiful black.
Maybe then--
- Can I talk to you real quick?
- Forrest Mars was relentless
in his pursuit of perfection
and he expected everyone
who worked for him
to have that same level
of intensity and drive.
And if you didn't give it to
him, you would hear about it.
- That is no way to treat
people and you know it.
- Please, we've been short of
the projections for months.
- That doesn't give you the
right to humiliate grown men.
- I am trying to do my job.
- I don't need you undermining
my authority at every turn.
You openly contradict
me on the floor
in front of my employees?
- Your employees?
You mean our employees?
- This is my company, Forrest.
And unless you want to go
out and build your own,
it's about damn time
you show some respect.
That'll be all.
- While candy
sales remain strong,
the Depression takes its toll
on the automobile industry.
And by 1932, sales of
new cars plummet by 75%.
- People are no longer
able to afford cars.
People who were previously
upper class or middle class
now find themselves working
class, homeless, impoverished.
- In a stretch of Kentucky
known as Hell's Half Acre,
with fewer cars on the road,
one local gas station owner
makes an unexpected move
to stay afloat.
- No matter how brutal the
economy was in the 1930s,
people still needed to have hope
that things were
going to get better.
Companies still open
during this period,
new products still arise,
largely because people
are just making a living.
- His name is Harlan Sanders
and years before he's
known as the Colonel
all around the globe, serving
12 million customers a day.
- It's good chicken!
- After a long
stretch of career failure,
he drums up extra business
by selling fried chicken
out of the tiny kitchen
inside his Shell station.
- This is a guy who's gone
through a series of jobs.
He gets fired from
being a lawyer
for getting into a
fistfight with his client
in the courtroom.
He gets a job as an
insurance salesman
and gets fired again
for insubordination.
- You're gonna want to see this.
- This is not a calm guy.
He is a rough and tumble guy.
- There's one other gas station
in Hell's Half Acre
and competition for
customers is fierce.
The other station's owner
has repeatedly painted
over Sanders' billboards
and Harlan Sanders is fighting
to keep his business alive.
- Afternoon, fellas.
- In a heated turf war.
- You all right?
Get help, get help!
- Harlan Sanders
shoots a rival gas station owner
in the shoulder.
- Sebastian, get help.
Get you help!
- But one of
his own men is killed.
- The other gas station
owner was sentenced
to prison for many years.
The outcome of all this
is Harlan Sanders became
the only gas station
operator in town.
He succeeded through,
well, violence and gunfire.
- Sanders capitalizes
by focusing on
selling his chicken,
recognizing the potential
in a Southern tradition
that goes back generations.
- Fried chicken is an
outcropping of soul food.
Slaves and later sharecroppers
could not afford livestock
on their meager wages
and their meat sustenance was
either wild game or chicken,
what was known as yard bird.
- During the 20s,
widespread use of the
commercial incubator
and availability of
cheap feed turned chicken
into a more affordable
alternative to pork and beef.
Now, Sanders is counting on
it to increase his business.
- How long till
some more's ready?
- Hell, y'all only asked
me that two minutes ago,
so roughly we're
two minutes closer.
- Well, there's a whole
load of people out there
and they're antsy.
- Yeah, well, asking
me every five seconds
doesn't make it fry any faster.
- He would cook
chicken in a frying pan
and it takes 30, 40
minutes to cook them
and you got road travelers.
And the road travelers
didn't have 30, 40 minutes
to be standing there waiting.
- Convenience cures everything.
I think all these
innovators understood
that people will wait
to have it, got it,
and it's always the same.
It's about convenience and
it's about consistency.
- Sanders has
to find a way to adapt.
And when he does,
it'll be the start of
a $26 billion empire.
By 1932, Frank and Forrest
Mars' empire has grown
to $25 million in revenue,
making them the number two
candy company in America.
And they're fighting
over its legacy.
- Forrest takes credit
for the Milky Way,
telling everyone that it came
from his meeting with his dad
when they were drinking
malted milkshakes
in a diner that
afternoon in Chicago.
- I want 30%.
- Of what?
- Of this company.
I've earned it.
- Forrest, this is my company!
- 30% or I walk out that door!
- Don't.
- Yes or no?
If I leave, I'm not coming back.
- I'm sorry.
- For Frank Mars, having
Forrest, his estranged son,
try to take control
was a huge strain.
And ultimately,
Frank basically said
"You go start your own company."
- Forrest is now determined
to start his own business,
crush his father,
and go to war with
Milton Hershey.
Amazingly, by 1936, Hershey's
Depression-era profits
are more than 10
times his payroll.
- During the Great Depression,
industries are drying up
and Hershey was
really able to escape
that sort of negative
impact because fortunately,
people still wanted
to consume chocolate.
Mr. Goodbar took off
and it was a sensation.
And Hershey wasn't
affected as much.
- Here.
Will.
This is what I've had
drafted for the museum.
What do you think?
- It's good.
It's big.
- Yeah.
Wait till you see the stadium.
- Hershey invests $10 million
into expanding his town,
adding everything from
the Hershey Stadium
to the Hotel Hershey,
alienating some of his workers.
- Hershey is really out of
touch with his employees
and many see him not
as a benevolent owner
but somebody who's
exploiting their labor.
And so there's the desire
on the part of workers
to ensure that their rights
are gonna be respected.
- Look around.
We work and we work.
For what?
You think William Murrie's
not giving himself a raise?
How about Milton Hershey?
- Feeling
they deserve a fair share
of the company's success,
disgruntled workers
quietly begin to organize,
inspired by a movement
sweeping the nation.
As part of legislation
under President Roosevelt,
for the first time,
American workers are
guaranteed a minimum wage
and the right to unionize.
- The labor unions began to
push for an eight hour day.
But it wasn't just an
eight hour day for work,
it actually was divided
up into three parts.
Eight hours to work,
eight hours to rest,
and eight hours to
do as you please.
More importantly, you
understand there's going
to be a regular
paycheck coming in.
- Unions spring
up across the country
and strikes make headlines.
And in 1934, longshoremen
on the West Coast
stage a walkout that
shuts down ports
from Washington to California
for nearly three months.
And in Michigan in 1936,
striking workers shut down
a General Motors
plant for 44 days.
- There was industrial
warfare that was taking place.
Very often, the state militia,
the federal troops would arrive
and they were used
to break the strikes.
And when the strikers
would resist,
violence would break out.
People would get killed,
property got destroyed.
And this was something
that really worried
many Americans.
- On April 2nd, 1937,
workers at Hershey's
chocolate plant
turn off their machines,
lock the doors, and
stage a sit down strike.
- The sit down strike was a
first ever in Pennsylvania.
Milton Hershey at this
point in time, I mean,
that really affected him.
I mean, he was
really, really hurt.
You know, here he had
basically lived his whole life
and created this community
and really investing in the
quality of life of the worker
and didn't understand
why they were striking.
- How bad is it?
- There's a good number of
workers that still support you
but the strikers,
they have the factory.
And until that changes,
we're dead in the water.
- After everything the
company's done for them.
- What the strikers
didn't even consider was
how it was gonna affect
everyone else around them.
You had farmers from
six neighboring counties
who were still
milking their cows
and no one was
coming to pick it up.
- Local farmers sell the bulk
of their fresh milk to Hershey.
And as the strike drags on,
3.2 million pounds of
it sit unsold, spoiling.
- You had this sort of
counter-insurgence if you will.
People were so upset that they
rose up against the strike.
Farmers and business
people and housewives
who were ready to
march on the factory
and demand that they stop.
- On April 7th, 1937,
hundreds of farmers,
infuriated by the strike,
storm Hershey's
factory to end it,
armed with clubs,
bats, and ice picks.
- Let us in!
- End the strike or
we're coming in!
- Sir.
It's chaos out there.
What do you want me to do?
Sir?
- We should let it play out,
see if it resolves itself.
- Someone's gonna get killed.
- This is the last warning!
- At Hershey's factory.
- End the strike!
- The clash
between striking workers
and enraged local dairy farmers.
- We're not leaving
until you come out!
- Erupts in violence.
Leaving 25 people
brutally beaten
and others rushed
to the hospital.
The tragedy makes
national headlines.
- Hershey felt that he's
done so much for his workers.
He built this factory
town, in his mind,
to ensure that his
workers had access
to good housing,
to good schools.
His workers however didn't
necessarily see it that way.
He feels deeply betrayed
by what happens in 1937
and he won't get over that.
- In the
aftermath of the strike,
Hershey distances himself
from day to day operations
at the company he created
and his workers get
higher overtime wages
and paid vacation.
Wages are rising across
the country
and by spring of 1937,
US unemployment
has fallen from 25%
all the way to 14%.
With more money in
motorists' pockets,
Harlan Sanders' gas station
chicken could be a gold mine,
if he can figure out a new way
to speed up the cooking process.
- Who doesn't want
to change the world
and make quite a bit
of money doing it?
I think that's the brass ring.
The truth is, these men
really do truly embody
that sort of American
business leader spirit
that we sort of only reserve
this sort of reverence
for men named Carnegie
or Rockefeller.
- Sanders starts
tinkering with modifications
to an obscure
French cooking tool
called the pressure cooker.
The airtight metal
pot traps steam.
As pressure increases, so does
the boiling point of water.
This creates super heated liquid
that can reduce cook times
that should take hours
to just minutes.
- The technology of
the pressure cooker,
this is an amazing invention
that may sound silly
in the 21st century.
But we're not in
the 21st century,
we're in the first half
of the 20th century.
So he basically just
reinvented the internals
of that unit to make it work.
And it was dangerous.
It has to be monitored.
Sanders used to talk a lot
about how often those
pressure cookers exploded.
- Sanders has
to adapt the appliance
to superheat oil instead of
water to fry his chicken.
By swapping out
the rubber O rings
for much stronger metal washers,
Sanders turns the pressure
cooker into a pressure fryer.
Now he should be able
to fry his chicken
in less than 1/3 of the time.
And if he can come up
with the right recipe
it will appeal to millions.
- Guess we wouldn't really
need that shipment, would we?
- No.
- Well.
Things are good.
- Frank Mars
already sells his product
to millions.
The Mars Company is booming
with sales topping
$25 million a year.
- The Milky Way was a big hit
and Frank Mars is a
wealthy, wealthy man.
We look back at those things
and go of course it took off,
it was really a
big hit right away.
Those men and women
who start businesses,
they don't know that.
They just believe
this is gonna happen.
and in the United States,
we reward our successes
and that's one reason why
they're still remembered today.
And today in the top
five chocolate bars,
three of the top five
chocolate bars consumed
in the world come
from Frank Mars.
- Frank?
Frank?
Help, help!
We need an ambulance.
Call an ambulance now!
Frank?
- At 51 years old,
Frank Mars suffers a
massive heart attack,
leaving the future of one
of the most lucrative
food companies
in the country in doubt.
- After a bitter
power struggle with his father,
Forrest Mars was forced out
of the company they
built together.
Now living in Europe, he
finds out that Frank has died.
- By the time Forrest got
word of his father's passing,
the funeral had
already taken place.
And I think that missing
his father's funeral
and not getting to mend his
relationship with his dad
affected him very deeply
and changed his
nature to a degree,
made him perhaps
even more ambitious,
gave him more drive,
made him want to prove
himself all the more.
- Forrest is
determined to take control
of his father's company,
but first he needs
an idea big enough
to generate the fortune
he'll need to buy it.
Harlan Sanders has the
fried chicken recipe
he believes will make him rich.
Now he has to modify
it for a pressure fryer
that will cook it
three times faster.
- Damn.
- Over-fried
chicken is burnt to a crisp
and undercooked chicken is rife
with salmonella and E. coli.
- With every new development,
for every innovation in the
food production process,
it takes a while to
figure out what is wrong
with that new system.
When you're sort of
near the cutting edge,
this is the riskiest edge
and along with risk comes
a possibility of failure.
- Coating his chicken
in 11 signature
herbs and spices,
Sanders experiments with
cook time and pressure,
looking for the perfect batch.
- He is trying to make his
chicken in a very unusual way.
What Harlan Sanders
did is he applied
both a different recipe and
a different technique to it.
To cook the chicken very
uniformly
in a very short amount of time.
- After
painstaking trial and error,
the chicken comes
out crispy and moist,
all in under eight minutes.
And the world is about
to get its first taste
of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Over the course of four decades,
the Hershey Bar has
become an American staple.
And in an incredible
act of kindness,
Milton Hershey donates
over $60 million,
nearly his entire fortune,
to charity throughout his life.
- His dream was
to create a legacy
and an institution for children.
The initial focus of the
Orphan School For Boys
was really to have
children learn a trade.
Originally, it was
just orphan boys
who had lost their fathers,
and then the girls were admitted
and students of all races
and from really every
corner of the country.
And he actually viewed
these children as his own
because he and his
wife were never able
to have children of their own.
- With his legacy secure,
Hershey is ready
to pass the torch
and William Murrie
has always been
his most trusted lieutenant.
- I thought you should know,
I'm stepping down.
And Percy Staples
is replacing me.
I'm sorry, Will.
I wanted you to hear it from me.
Will you support him?
- Yeah, I'll have to head down
there and congratulate him.
He's earned it.
- I think Murrie assumed
that he would take over
from Milton Hershey someday.
What Murrie always
wanted was for his kids
to become the owners and
operators of Hershey.
And now it was obvious this
was never going to happen.
- William Murrie
helped build Hershey's empire.
Now, he's driven to
cement his own legacy.
By sheer luck, Forrest Mars has
just the thing Murrie needs.
He's back in the United
States with a new product
that'll change
both of their lives
and become the most popular
chocolate candy in America.
William Murrie,
the president of Hershey's
Chocolate Company.
- So nice to meet you in person.
- Is meeting with the
son of its biggest competitor.
- Next time, make
an appointment.
- And together,
they're about to
create a new legacy
and one of the most popular
candies in the world.
- How can I help
you today, Forrest?
- Look at these.
- Colorful.
So what?
- So they've been in my
pocket since I left New York.
- These are chocolate?
How is that possible?
- Wait, wait, wait.
You don't want my pocket candy.
Try this.
- Murrie had never
seen a candy coating
on top of chocolate before.
That was really an
unusual concept back then
and he was fascinated.
- It's impressive.
- And you know better
than anyone else
how much money this could mean.
For a 20% investment
and your guarantee
of a steady supply of
Hershey's chocolate,
Bruce, your son, he's the
executive vice president
of my new company.
- I think Bruce will go for it.
- Mars and Murrie.
That has a ring to it.
- I like it too.
- Enjoy those.
- I don't think anybody even
knows M&M actually were people.
It was, you know,
Murrie and it was Mars
who created these little
chocolates in a shell
that melted in your mouth
and not in your hands.
- To finally put
his own last name on a product,
William Murrie
quietly brokers a deal
that allows his son to buy
20% of Forrest's new company.
Forrest quickly opens a
factory in Newark, New Jersey
and pours all of his resources
into mass production of a
new milk chocolate product
that's resistant to melting.
- He purchases equipment
called panning equipment
and they were these
giant copper drums
that would spin around
and then would coat these
little pellets of chocolate,
lentil-shaped chocolates.
- Mars glazes his chocolate
in multiple thin layers of
brightly colored candy coating,
creating one of the most iconic
confections on the planet.
The M&M.
But before he can introduce
his candy-coated chocolate
to the nation.
- December 7th, 1941.
A date which will
live in infamy.
The United States of
America was suddenly
and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces
of the empire of Japan.
The United States was at
peace with that nation.
The attack yesterday
on the Hawaiian islands
has caused severe damage
to American naval
and military forces.
As commander-in-chief
of the Army and Navy,
I have directed that all
measures be taken
for our defense.
- The attack on Pearl
Harbor took most Americans
completely by surprise.
The idea a foreign
country could come in
from across the ocean and
bomb American territory
shook Americans as almost
nothing else
in the 20th century.
This was suddenly
a national effort.
- Soon, 16
million Americans will serve
and the country will turn to
the titans of American food
to fuel them to victory.
- After the bombing
of Pearl Harbor,
the leaders of
American industry watch
as the United States is
thrust into World War II.
The conflict spreads
across the globe,
claiming more than
50 million lives
and destroying more
property and farmland
than any war that's
come before it.
- As a direct result of the
devastation of World War II,
American food production
in many countries
is the only food
production available.
Consequently, the United
States really becomes
the great breadbasket
of the entire world.
- The war marks the
end of the Great Depression,
as American factories
roar to life
producing some
300,000 airplanes,
650,000 Jeeps, and
billions of food rations.
- Premodern armies spent
probably 60% of their time
foraging for food so
that they could fight.
This American supply line meant
that American soldiers
didn't have to do that.
It was a huge
strategical advantage.
It's not a stretch to say
that some of these products
helped to win the war.
- At the
forefront of the war effort
are the titans of American food.
Companies like Marjorie
Post's General Foods,
which dedicates
its Denver factory
to making 10 in one rations,
light, easily
carried kits designed
to feed groups of soldiers
three meals a day.
The H. J. Heinz Company
works with the government,
secretly converting
some factories
to make munitions and rations.
- The Heinz Company
innovated all kinds of things
that contributed
to the war effort.
They started making wings
for glider aircraft.
There were self-heating cans.
You just inserted a cigarette
into the bottom of the can
and it could heat up
rations in just minutes.
- The Kellogg's
Company produces K rations,
small individual meals
designed to feed mobile forces
like airborne troops
and tank crews.
Milton Hershey even
returns from his retirement
to oversee his
company's wartime effort
and is tasked with developing
a high calorie energy bar.
- This looks like enough
for a small country.
- Good.
- Hershey played a critical role
in supporting the military
by supplying rations.
They were working with
the war department
to actually invent something
- All right.
that would help the
soldiers remain alert
and active and well-fed
for maybe an entire day
on a single ration.
- Hershey wins the contract
for what the military
names the Ration D Bar,
eventually producing 24
million of them a week.
- It was so important
to winning the war
that the Hershey Company
received one of the
highest awards
ever given out by the military
for civilian contributions.
And that was huge.
- Driven by the war effort,
Hershey and other iconic
American companies
expand their reach
across the globe.
- We see the American
GIs stationed overseas
sort of acting as food
mascots for America.
They gave out the chocolate bars
that were in their rucksacks
and it really began this
worldwide footprint.
To a degree, you might even
call it food diplomacy.
- You could trade American
products for other items
or for sexual favors,
but it really did provide
an essential morale booster
for many of the troops, so
they just sort of cherished it.
- With the bulk
of resources dedicated
to the war overseas,
on the home front,
some foods are
increasingly scarce.
- The government
started food rationing,
where people could only buy
a certain amount of sugar,
could only get a certain
amount of cocoa, of meat.
- Anyone who was selling
food to the general public
has to adhere to these rules.
- There's a
company in New England
with a stockpile of
goods ready to step in
and feed Americans at home,
Birds Eye Frozen Foods.
- One, two, three, four,
five, six of those.
Yeah, keep stacking.
That gets filled up,
just fill it in here.
Come on in.
Excellent, thank you.
Stack it up there,
if you would, guys.
- With the
wartime economy booming.
- We're running out of
space, we can go back, okay?
- The number of American homes
with refrigerators
jumps from less than 10%
to well over half.
- I think the invention
of the freezer
is the single most
important innovation,
certainly of the
last 200 years or so.
That allowed women
to have more time,
when previously we were
tied to the kitchen,
cooking three meals
a day from scratch
because there was no way
to keep it fresh otherwise.
Once they had more
time on their hands,
they could go out and get jobs,
and that was really
a social revolution.
- Frozen food
changes the American kitchen,
making more products more
widely available all year round
at lower prices, all while
being easier to prepare.
Forrest Mars's deal with
William Murrie turns out
to be a brilliant one,
since the Hershey's
chocolate Murrie supplies
is exempt from rationing
and Forrest begins selling
to one exclusive buyer.
- Okay, just let me
know where to send it.
- The US military.
With his company producing
200,000 pounds of M&M's
per week.
- Federal spending on the war
was getting bigger and bigger.
And of course, companies,
they were delighted
to be associated with the US
War Department, the military,
to provide for some 15
million American servicemen
and women overseas.
- During the war, the
companies that were successful,
companies that can develop
strong relationships
with the government.
- When GIs
eventually return home,
the rest of America
discovers M&M's
and it becomes the most
popular candy in the country,
beating the Hershey's Bar
and even his own
father's Milky Way.
- Forrest's empire was
three times the size
of his father's
original company.
But Forrest wasn't satisfied.
He didn't have anything to do
with his dad's original company.
And he wanted that
more than anything.
- With the
millions he makes off M&M's,
Forrest buys a majority stake in
his father's company, Mars Inc,
gaining control of Snickers,
3 Musketeers, and the Milky Way.
- All those years,
he was building his own
enormously successful business
and finally Forrest manages
to reunite his empire
with his dad's original company.
So Frank Mars is
really the founder
of the Mars candy empire.
Forrest is credited very much
for making Mars the
company that it is today.
- I don't think people realize
that Mars is also
involved with Skittles,
is also involved
with lams dog food,
is also involved with
Whiskas cat food,
is also involved in
Uncle Ben's rice.
The amount of diversity alone
is enough to break your brain.
- Today, the
Mars Company generates
more than $35 billion
in sales each year,
making it one of the biggest
family owned companies
in the world and the Mars
family is the third richest
in the nation, with
a reported net worth
of more than $60 billion.
- The big thing in America,
they always talk about success.
I think we now are
affording these candy makers
their place in the
pantheon of business giants
and not just food creators.
- Fueled by American industry,
after six bloody
years of fighting,
in September 1945, World
War II comes to an end.
The United States is
now a global superpower.
- Because of World War II,
the United States becomes
the most powerful country
perhaps arguably in the
history of the world.
Literally 1/2 of global
production,
industrial production,
occurs in the United States.
The Great Depression
comes to a full close.
Employment goes sky high.
We're the only major
power in the world
that has a higher
standard of living
at the end of the war
than at the beginning.
- Harlan Sanders
has been on the leading edge
of the economic boom,
with sales of his popular
fried chicken financing a move
out of his old gas station and
into a sit down restaurant.
- Harlan Sanders
was a ne'er-do-well
for the first 40
years of his life.
He shucked around
from job to job,
nothing seemed to go
real well in his life
except that people liked
the chicken that he cooked.
- Contract here.
- Right.
Got a pen?
- Sure do.
- So just logically said
"Okay, I'll put both feet
"into the restaurant business."
- Appreciate it.
- Sanders is positioning himself
on a major roadway,
determined to take advantage
of an unprecedented cultural
shift, the car boom.
The American middle
class is growing
and more and more
people can afford cars.
Since before the war,
the number of cars on the
road has nearly doubled
to 50 million and
life in America
is completely reinvented.
- Modern Americans' life
becomes nearly impossible
without a car.
As a result of this,
businesses factor
this into their model.
So for the first time you
see drive in restaurants
where people are gonna drive up
and then the food will be
delivered to their cars.
You see this with drive
in movie theaters.
There is this idea that
the automobile becomes
almost your home away from home.
It's your private space but it
goes wherever you want to go.
And then you can get food there,
you can engage in
entertainment there,
and this is part of your life.
- In San Bernardino, California,
two brothers are trying to
cash in on the car craze,
running a drive in
barbecue restaurant
with car hops who bring
food to hungry drivers.
- Dick and Mac
McDonald were brothers
from a large family
in New Hampshire
and they came west
in search of fortune
and they wound up
buying a movie theater
outside of Los Angeles.
And they recognized
pretty quickly
that where they were
really making the money
was the concession stands.
So that's when they made the
decision to sort of pivot.
- But broken
dishes and bloated staff
are eating into their profits.
In order to make more money,
they need to move
customers more quickly
through the parking lot and
their car hops aren't helping.
- When you're on the
clock, I need you working.
Not sitting around flirting
with your boyfriends.
- What my brother's
trying to say is
we have customers sometimes
waiting upwards of 20 minutes.
Paying customers.
They should be
your primary focus.
- So in case you're
missing the point,
let me say this loud and clear.
Stop flirting.
Start working!
Are we clear?
- The McDonald brothers realized
that if they can lower overhead.
- Go on, get outta here.
- And speed up service,
they can send profits soaring.
What they don't know is
that the system
they're about to create
will someday bring in revenues
over $22 billion a year
but they'll watch it
go to somebody else.
In the postwar boom, the
American middle class
is quickly expanding
and car ownership soars
to 50 million
automobiles by 1951.
With newfound freedom,
people start moving further
away from city centers,
giving rise to the
American suburb.
Before World War II,
less than 13% of Americans
lived in suburbs.
But by 1950, that number
has nearly doubled.
- One of the things the
US government provided
as a reward to the
GIs was the GI Bill.
And the GI Bill funded
mortgages on homes
because they had gone
off to war at a time
when they would have
been starting families,
they would have
been buying houses.
And all of a sudden,
boom goes the suburbs,
where the air is cleaner,
the grass is greener,
you can have more space,
you can have a picket fence.
And this became part
of the American dream.
- 50 miles outside Los Angeles,
Dick and Mac McDonald run a
suburban drive in restaurant
called McDonald's Barbecue.
They serve 25 menu items
with a focus on
hickory-smoked pork and beef.
But everything from tamales
to peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches are available.
And with wait times sometimes
exceeding 20 minutes,
the McDonald's brothers know
they're leaving
money on the table.
- I say we get rid
of the car hops.
Turn the car hop station
into a self-service window
and let people walk up
and place their order.
- What?
The whole point of a
drive in restaurant
is so that people drive into it.
- No, the whole point
of a drive in restaurant
is so people can
drive in and eat.
Not wait in your car
for half the night.
This isn't a restaurant,
it's a glorified parking lot.
- Yeah.
Think about all the
overhead we'd be cutting.
- You know, I can't tell
if you're being serious
or you're just messing with me.
- The idea of having a person,
typically it was a woman,
deliver you food to
the window of your car
was super attractive because
people were so in love
with their cars when
they bought them
that they didn't want
to get out of them.
But car hop restaurants
did take a long time.
It was more of an outing
than it was a feeding
and that posed a problem if
you were running a business.
- 80% of our orders
in the last month
have been for hamburgers.
After that, fries and shakes
is where we make
our highest margins.
Everything else
really isn't worth
the time it takes to make it.
- You're suggesting we just
sell burgers, fries, and shakes?
- Correct.
- We can't sell
just three items.
- Why not?
- People want choice.
- No, people want good.
And people want cheap.
Say, 15 cents a burger.
- How the hell are we supposed
to survive selling those?
- Well, we'd have to
sell a lot of 'em.
- The kitchen's already
working as fast as it can.
- Well, then we
redesign the kitchen.
- What sounds like
a simple construction project
will lead the McDonald
brothers to an innovation
that will change
the way America eats
and revolutionize what will
become a $570 billion industry,
generating more economic
value than most countries.
With traffic on Route
25 driving business,
Harlan Sanders' old
fashioned sit down
fried chicken
restaurant is so popular
that he's becoming
a local celebrity.
In 1949, Lieutenant
Governor Lawrence Weatherby
gives him the honorary
title of Kentucky Colonel
and the iconic Colonel
Sanders is created.
- In the public mind,
Harlan Sanders had no past.
He did not exist before his
public image of the 1950s.
The white suit was
a self-promoting persona
that he created.
He wanted to portray
this kind of Southern
gentlemanly image.
- Sanders expands
his empire along Route 25,
opening cafes and
even a roadside motel.
- He realized that he was
not just selling chicken,
he was also selling the concept
of Southern hospitality.
And money came rolling in.
- That's 36 by
52, left to right.
Yeah, and that is
four foot square.
- The McDonald brothers
aren't just expanding
their kitchen.
They don't know it yet
but they're reinventing
the restaurant
for modern American life.
- You ready?
- Hell, I don't know.
I feel ridiculous.
- Well, if it makes
you feel any better,
you look ridiculous.
- Okay.
Let's go.
- Patties down.
- Yeah.
- And flip 'em.
- There were so many
costs associated
with opening a car
hop restaurant.
They saw this as a
chance to innovate.
- Okay, patties to buns.
- So they decided to lay
out on the tennis court
this choreography
of food preparation.
- Great, condiments.
- No, nope, I'm not ready yet.
Either that's too soon or
the patties are too slow.
- Okay, let's look
at this again.
If you come around and...
- Car hops were sort
of hamburger 101.
Now we want to do hamburger 102.
- Let's try it,
let's try it, okay.
- Okay, patties down.
- Yep.
- Flip 'em.
- Their whole idea was that
we're gonna put the hamburger
on the assembly line.
- After three
months of construction,
the McDonald's brothers
open a new restaurant,
designed to serve an entire
meal in 60 seconds or less.
Not through a car hop but
a walk up service window.
- Turn your
head to the left, please.
To your other left?
And three, two, one.
- The McDonald's
fast food restaurant is born,
the first of over 37,000
that will one day spread
around the world.
- Okay, gentlemen.
Those are done, those are done.
Flip 'em, let's go.
Where are my buns?
Thank you.
Let's get 'em dressed
and get 'em out.
Let's go, let's go, let's
wrap 'em and stack 'em.
Let's move, let's move!
- All right, keep moving,
guys, you're doing great.
- Initially, they were worried
that they'd made a
terrific enormous mistake.
But slowly but surely,
people started coming
and they saw what was going on,
that they could get
their food faster.
And it took off.
- The brothers
named their new kitchen design
the Speedee Service System,
an innovation every
bit as groundbreaking
as Henry Heinz's continuous flow
and Henry Ford's assembly line.
Their sales increase by 40%.
- We all take fast
food for granted now.
It didn't exist.
If you were gonna have a meal,
you'd have to sit
down, there was china,
there was preparation.
You know, a meal was at
least an hour of your time.
The McDonald's brothers
revolutionized a system
which let them mass
produce good food,
burgers, fries, shakes,
in a very quick way.
And then when people heard
of what was going on there,
they wanted to know
what their secret was.
- Welcome to our new
Speedee System, folks.
Come on in.
Dick, why don't
you start 'em off
and tell 'em how it goes?
- Absolutely.
Thank you guys for coming,
we certainly appreciate it.
- The brothers
sell their secrets
of the Speedee System
to anyone who wants them
for $950 a piece
and give free tours
to anyone who asks.
- My brother and I came up
with this brand
new kitchen system
to really make not only our
restaurants very efficient
but your restaurants as well.
- Among those
who get an inside look
are Matthew Burns
and Keith Kramer,
two of the men
behind Burger King.
And Glen Bell, the
founder of Taco Bell.
- What is your restaurant, sir?
- It's a little taco restaurant.
- There you go, see?
That's perfect.
What are tacos anyway?
- Mexican.
- Okay.
It's like a crunchy
sandwich, I think.
- Excellent, excellent.
- The brothers were
attracting a lot of attention,
not just from customers
but from lookie-loos
and copycats.
- McDonald's is a huge hit,
generating $350,000 in revenue.
But the McDonald's brothers
have no serious
ambition to expand.
For now.
By the 1950s,
the Cold War with the
Soviet Union is heating up.
And in 1956, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower signs
the National Interstate
and Defense Highways Act.
It authorizes $25 billion
to build 41,000 miles of
new interstate highway,
connecting the entire
nation and strengthening it.
- Eisenhower thought
this would be useful
for bringing the country
together industrially,
economically, culturally.
Much like the railroads had
been in the 19th century.
But the interstate system was
also useful for the Cold War
in national security terms.
It would allow you to
move troops around,
allow you to move
supplies around.
In fact, different
parts of the interstate
were actually graded so that
airplanes could land on them.
If the country
was every invaded,
we would have thousands
and thousands of miles
of air strips that could be
useful in thwarting an enemy.
- The project
reshapes the nation.
But when a highway
reroutes traffic,
it can spell disaster
for businesses.
And Colonel Sanders'
once booming restaurant
along old Route 25.
- How's everything, folks?
- Great, thank you.
- You enjoying that chicken?
- Yes, thank you.
- Thanks for dining with us.
- Thank you.
- Is suddenly empty.
- The interstate highway comes
and it bypasses the old
restaurants entirely.
Sales go down,
restaurants close.
People were no longer getting
off at the exit for him
because the road is moved.
And things aren't going
well for Colonel Sanders.
- On the verge of bankruptcy,
Sanders is forced to sell
his restaurant at auction
to pay his debts.
And everything
he's built is gone.
By the mid-1950s,
the McDonald brothers have
turned the restaurant kitchen
into an assembly line.
- Okay, gentlemen, those
are done, those are done.
Flip 'em, let's go.
Where are my buns?
- They broke convention
and yet it worked for them.
They understood the need
in automated culture
to deliver the goods quickly.
But also by limiting
the original menu,
it allowed them to sort of
focus on kind of quality control
and focus specifically on speed.
- All right, keep moving,
guys, you're doing great.
- Their successes
have caught the attention
of an ambitious milkshake
machine salesman
named Ray Kroc, who has
spent a lifetime looking
for the idea that could
make him millions.
- Ray Kroc was very
confident, very self-assured.
Ray was looking for
the next big thing
and that day, Ray Kroc walked up
to the San Bernardino
McDonald's,
just as any of us
who stumbled upon the next big
thing feels when we see it,
wow, eureka.
That's cool, I want
a piece of this.
- Had to come see it for myself
and meet the guys behind it.
- Flattery
will get you everywhere.
- Order to customer
in two minutes?
Fellas, been on
the road for years
and I have never seen
anything like this anywhere.
I just want to
help you share it.
- Well, we're not
hiding anything.
You know, we've got ads
in the trade papers.
Anyone who wants can
buy the basic idea
of the Speedee
System for 900 bucks.
- They had a thriving
business right there
in downtown San Bernardino.
They didn't want an empire,
they didn't need an empire.
It's really hard for
people in this day and age
to think who wouldn't
need more money?
Why wouldn't you want to grow?
Why wouldn't you get bigger
and bigger and bigger?
Well, the truth is they were
happy the way they were.
- Not the system.
McDonald's.
You guys aren't
thinking big enough.
Let me help you go nationwide.
We'll have one in every city.
McDonald's will be
a household name.
- If we had a restaurant
in every city,
there's no way that
we could make sure
they're all up to snuff.
We're stretched thin as
is with just one location.
- How 'bout you let
me worry about that?
- I don't know.
- We'll take it step by step.
I will oversee every new
restaurant personally.
Keep you in the loop.
You can be as hands on
or hands off as you want.
- Hands on.
- That's how I prefer it.
Now you're gonna need
someone you can trust.
Make me your exclusive
franchising agent
and no one will work harder.
- Ray Kroc was able
to worm his way in
to working with the brothers,
only because he was
persistent with them.
If he hadn't, we
wouldn't be sitting here
having this conversation today.
- What Kroc is offering
is a low risk, high
reward business strategy
called franchising.
- Franchising is
spreading your business
and your brand with
somebody else's money.
- Pioneered by the auto industry
which franchised dealerships,
companies charge an initial fee
plus a percentage of sales
in exchange for brand name
use and proprietary methods.
- You just sell a concept
and a name to someone else,
let them build the building,
let them buy the product, and
let them sell the product.
What they give you is a
percentage of their earnings.
- As the McDonald's
exclusive franchising agent,
Ray Kroc takes out
a hefty bank loan
to open his first
McDonald's franchise
in his hometown of
Des Plaines, Illinois.
- Kroc was the visionary who
saw I could take this system,
put it in different places
all throughout the country,
and he was onto
something that was bigger
than just a small
town restaurant
doing something different.
He saw the potential.
- Over the next four years,
Kroc supervises over
38 franchise openings
in Illinois, Arizona,
Texas, and California.
Kroc sees the potential
to grow even faster
and he wants to be the
one to profit from it
instead of lining the
McDonald brothers' pockets.
He needs full control
of the company.
Colonel Sanders can
barely make ends meet.
His restaurant is closed
and he's living off
social security,
a meager $105 a month.
Determined to reinvent
himself, he hits the road,
armed with his secret weapons.
A pressure fryer
and his secret recipe
of 11 herbs and spices.
- By the end of the 1950s,
1/3 of all Americans
live in suburbs,
up 10% in just a decade,
and busy commuters spend
roughly 25% of their food budget
outside the home.
- In 1930s America, very
few people went out to eat.
There aren't many restaurants.
And what you have in postwar
America is the explosion
of everyday restaurants.
People have more money,
they're going out more,
and they're going
out more often.
The people who want
to make money on food
have to meet the demands of
people constantly on the move.
- Colonel Sanders is looking
for a new way to adapt
to the changing times.
His last restaurant
went out of business
but he refuses to give up.
- When he was facing
financial hardship,
he literally got
in his car one day
and started driving
around to area restaurants
and saying "If you
sell my chicken
"and if you give me
four cents per chicken,
"I will teach you my
preparation technique
"and I will give
you the recipe."
- Lightly dusted so
there's no clumping.
Folks want bad chicken,
they can get it at home.
- He would make it for
the restaurant owner.
He would actually demonstrate
how it was cooked.
- Right over here is what
I call my pressure fryer.
You've heard of a
pressure cooker, right?
Same concept.
Except this one right here's
been custom engineered
to handle hot oil
under high pressure.
All right?
Eight minutes and it's done.
Don't go lifting up lid,
take a peek, trust me.
And don't go guessing
the time neither.
I know what goes on in kitchens,
I've worked in one long enough.
I use a timer each and every
time and so should you.
- He had been a salesman in
many forms throughout his years
and it was always
something he was good at.
- And that's what it looks
like every single time.
Now, let's talk profits.
How this works is
customer gets the chicken,
I get four cents
off every order.
And the rest is yours.
- I'm in.
- He went to 1,009 places
trying to license
his chicken recipe
but the 1,010th
actually picked it up.
- Hallelujah.
- Colonel Sanders
doesn't open physical locations.
He licenses his name and
recipe to existing restaurants,
selling his Kentucky
Fried Chicken
in over 200 of them
across the country.
Ray Kroc has overseen the spread
of McDonald's restaurants
across the nation,
with 228 of them now generating
sales of $37.8 million.
But the McDonald's brothers
get only a half percent
of those sales
and franchise fees
and Kroc makes a salary
of just $20,000 a year.
- He made a decent living
but it wasn't like
he was a rich man.
Other people would be
happy to just keep working
and come home and put their
feet up at the end of the day,
but he just had a sense that
there was something larger
for him to achieve,
to accomplish.
Most people who sit down
to innovate don't say
"I am going to
change the world."
It's a byproduct, not the goal.
Jeff Bezos didn't sit down
and say he's gonna
change the world.
He just had this vision
and stuck with it.
- It's Mac.
- I'm gonna cut
straight to the chase.
How do you feel about retiring?
- Retiring?
- Yeah.
I'd like to buy you
out, for a fair price.
- He's asking to buy us out.
- Hey, if you need a
minute to think about this.
- 2.7 million, cash up front.
- What?
- That's a million for
Mac, a million for me,
and 700,000 for Uncle Sam.
We won't take a penny less.
- I can't come up
with that kind of money.
- That's for the name,
the rights, everything.
We just want to retain ownership
over our original restaurant.
There's no way he's gonna
come up with the money.
If he does, we're rich.
Look, we've been in
business for over 30 years,
working seven days a week,
week in and week out.
We would like a million dollars
a piece after taxes, Ray.
We think we've earned it.
- Work with me here.
- That's our final offer.
- Ray Kroc has
the unbridled ambition
to take McDonald's global
but Dick and Mac
stand in his way.
And he needs the equivalent
of almost $23 million
in today's money
to seize his dream.
By the early 1960s, fast
food is sweeping America,
led by McDonald's and
followed by Instaburger,
which changes its
name to Burger King,
and Taco Bell a few years later.
Others, such as Dairy
Queen, Pizza Hut,
and Dunkin' Donuts are
also expanding their reach.
Now Ray Kroc has a vision
of making McDonald's
the first international
fast food restaurant,
if he can wrestle
control of the company
from the McDonald
brothers for $2.7 million.
- Ray couldn't come
up with the money.
He went out to a
bunch of bankers
who initially were
extremely hostile
because that's an
enormous sum of money.
This is 1961.
Nobody wanted to take a risk
for a hamburger company.
- Kroc is already in debt
and unable to
secure a bank loan.
In a desperate move,
he strikes a deal
with an investment group,
agreeing to pay back more
than double what he borrows.
- All of the
contingencies you asked for
have been accounted for.
- All right, there we go.
- How does it feel
to be millionaires?
- Definitely doesn't feel
terrible, that's for sure.
- It feels kind of strange,
like it's happening to
someone else and not us.
It'll always be our baby.
- Ray had this vision
of going public someday
and McDonald's is an
international brand.
Ultimately he had
to buy them out
to allow him to keep
growing the business
the way he needed
and wanted it to go.
- Listen, thanks
for letting us keep
the original restaurant.
- Of course.
- In 1961,
Kroc purchases the name
and all rights to McDonald's,
paying $2.7 million
for a company
that will someday be
worth over 150 billion.
- Congratulations, gentlemen.
- The deal leaves the brothers
only their original restaurant.
- I can promise you one thing.
The American people will never
forget the name McDonald's.
- So after this deal was done,
as a move of vindictiveness,
Ray forced them to change
their name to The Big M
and he built a McDonald's
across the street.
The brothers existed
for several more years
and then finally folded
business altogether.
- Though
Dick and Mac created it,
it's Ray Kroc who oversees
the spread of McDonald's
across the nation and the world,
becoming known as the
company's founder.
- It wasn't until Ray died
that Dick McDonald, whose
brother by then had passed away,
ever expressed any remorse
about the way things went down.
McDonald's corporation
did a whole campaign
honoring the founder
of McDonald's
and that made Dick
McDonald really angry.
- I can say safely within
my own life, you know,
these incredible brands and
their amazing innovations
have made my life
infinitely more simple.
Anywhere I go in
the United States,
if I see those golden arches,
I know what that sandwich
is gonna taste like,
I know what that breakfast
is gonna taste like.
You can get a Big Mac
or an Egg McMuffin
anywhere in the world
and it will almost
exactly be the same.
- Today, McDonald's is
the most successful restaurant
chain on the planet,
with more than 37,000 locations.
They serve more than 62
million customers a day,
generating over $20 billion
in revenue every year.
Colonel Sanders drives
over 200,000 miles a year,
overseeing more
than 600 restaurants
that sell his chicken
and pay him a four
cent royalty per piece.
- He never actually
owned restaurants.
These were other
people's restaurants
and other people actually
making the product
on a daily basis.
Four cents a chicken
doesn't sound like much
until you're selling tens of
thousands of chickens a year.
And in 1950s money, that was
an extremely healthy income.
- Sanders earns $300,000 a year
until in 1964, a group of
investors see the value
of his 11 secret
herbs and spices.
- I tell you right now,
I never thought I'd let some
slick talking son of a bitch
come down here and talk his
way into buying my business
out from under me, no sir.
I spent my whole life
building this thing.
Heck, I don't even know
who I am without it.
- That's why
it's worth every penny.
That's two million cash
and we'd like to keep
you on in a key role.
- Colonel
Sanders sells all rights
to the company he's
spent a lifetime building
for $2 million, more
than 16 million today.
- So about this key role then.
- The partnership
that buys his company
begins opening dedicated
Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurants
and for an additional
annual salary,
Sanders becomes the
iconic face of the brand.
- Had we not had television,
we never would have known
who Colonel Sanders was.
Almost immediately, they
went up into Canada.
Almost immediately,
they started to Central
and South America.
They were the first
fast food franchise
in the People's
Republic of China.
It was no longer
just Southern style
but American style chicken.
- Today, there
are more than 20,000 KFCs
in over 125 countries,
all still using
Sanders' secret recipe.
- The 11 secret herbs and spices
is still a closely
guarded secret,
said to be held in a bank vault.
There has been all
sorts of efforts
to break them down in labs.
It's not something you
can replicate at home.
You have to go to KFC.
- Over the
course of nine decades,
America has gone from
a country of farmers
to the most powerful
nation on earth.
All fueled by the visionaries
who invented new ways
to feed the masses.
- These people were visionaries
as much as they were
culinary geniuses.
They were risk takers as much
as they were businessmen.
They were pioneers in spite
of all slings and arrows
of misfortune that
came their way
and their persistence of vision,
their persistence of thought,
and pursuance of this one goal,
the product the likes of
which the world hadn't seen
or tasted or experienced before,
therein lies the inspiration
that built the country
in the first place.
- These titans of industry,
from Henry Heinz to
Clarence Birdseye,
amassed fortunes that
rival any in history.
- I often wonder if the
people behind these massive,
unbelievably successful
brands knew exactly the scope
of what they were doing
when they started out.
They had a dream, they had
an idea, they had a vision.
But they could never at
the time have imagined
just how big it would be
because nothing else
existed like it.
- In the end, they changed more
than just the way America eats.
These iconic pioneers changed
the fabric of the nation,
enabling a modern lifestyle
and feeding the American dream.
- There's no way to talk about
Americans industrial might
without the power of
the food industry.
It's hard to imagine the
nation without Heinz,
Coke, McDonald's, Mars.
These products, they're able
to cross race and class lines
with a kind of effortlessness
that few other things can do.
And if you actually think
about the kind of
quintessential American story,
that's a story of food.
"The Food That Built America."
A trailblazing businesswoman.
- Sorry to keep you waiting.
- Took the reins of
her father's cereal company.
And shrewdly
recognized the genius
of inventor Clarence Birdseye.
- I'm not interested in owning
three quarters of anything.
- Together, they
brought frozen food to America
and created an empire.
Now, chocolate
magnate Milton Hershey
faces a new threat from within.
- It's chaos out there.
Someone's gonna get killed.
- While a power struggle.
- I want 30%.
- Tears candy titans Frank
and Forrest Mars apart.
- This is my company.
- 30% or I walk out that door!
- And a
surprising alliance leads
to one of the most popular
chocolate candies on earth.
And as America goes
through radical changes,
two bold innovators
rise to new challenges,
transforming the restaurant
kitchen into an assembly line
that will make millions
and create a battle for
the McDonald's dynasty.
- Start working!
- And a maverick
Kentucky businessman
fights to carve out his legacy,
going from a gas station
kitchen to an American icon.
- For nearly 25 years, the
Hershey Company has been
the most lucrative candy
maker in the nation,
with profits from the
Hershey Bar, Hershey's Syrup,
and the Hershey's Kiss
growing every single year.
From $1,000,000 in sales in 1906
to over 20 million by 1920,
the modern equivalent of
more than 250 million.
Turning milk chocolate
from an unknown luxury
into an everyday
American staple.
- Hershey, this guy
who marketed chocolate
as an affordable indulgence
and gets a ton of money
and lives this success.
It's really very much the
story of American industry,
it just happens
to be the industry
of the milk chocolate bar.
And I think that that's
something easy to overlook.
- Milton Hershey was very
famous by this point in time.
He was the wealthiest man
in all of Pennsylvania.
And he really was the one
who popularized
confection in America,
who understood that candy
should be for everybody.
And he wanted to
reward his employees
for their hard work.
He built the town of Hershey,
a town with all the best
that a community could offer.
Swimming pools and theaters
and all kinds of
community activities.
- The Hershey Bar is one
of the most popular luxuries
in an era of wealth and
excess called the roaring 20s,
driven by an economic
boom in the aftermath
of the First World War.
- The United States is in
many ways the great victor
of World War I.
American factories
had become what fed
and clothed the world.
New York has become the
financial center of the world.
The 1920s are a period of
incredible American prosperity.
This is a period of
conspicuous consumption.
- The stock market was
going, profits were going.
People were feeling
they were rich
and this is the
way it's gonna be.
This idea came to a crushing end
in the autumn of 1929.
- In October 1929,
after a decade of
unprecedented growth,
the stock market plummets
over 25% in just two days,
with total losses
over $30 billion.
Eventually, almost
half of US banks fail
and tens of thousands of
businesses go bankrupt,
triggering the Great Depression.
- Within just a few short years,
more than 1/4 of
Americans are unemployed.
This is still a time
when there's largely
single earner homes.
Therefore, we might be talking
about the half the country
having no effective income
coming into their household.
This is really a
dire economic strike.
- The Hershey
Company sales crash
by a devastating 50%.
And the easiest way to cut costs
is to reduce the massive
3,000 person workforce
that lives in Hershey,
Pennsylvania, a reality not lost
on Hershey's second in
command, William Murrie.
- It was William
Murrie's job to make sure
that the factory was operating
to its best potential.
He was the one who made
sure the trains ran on time,
he was the one who made sure
that the workers were there.
- It ever worry you
that we're responsible
for keeping food
on their tables?
- Yeah, especially now.
To tell you the truth,
forecasts don't look good.
- I know.
But I don't care.
I don't wanna lay
off a single worker.
- Are you insane?
If we see even a 20% decrease--
- We have to find another
way to make it work.
- If you'll just look
at the bottom line,
there's no chance--
- Find another way.
- Industries are drying up
and small towns across
the country
are just feeling the hit.
Hershey was really worried
about the quality of life
for the people in the town.
He did not want that
to happen in Hershey.
His dream was to
create a community.
Beyond that, his dream
is creating a legacy.
- Bent on preserving his utopia,
Milton Hershey is determined
not to lay off a single worker.
Against William Murrie's advice.
Just a year after the
stock market crash,
things get even worse.
Severe drought hits
overfarmed land,
kicking up 12 million
pounds of dirt
in storms called
black blizzards,
crippling American agriculture.
- The Great Depression is
compounded in many ways
by an environmental
crisis as well.
The famous Dust Bowl,
where the entire top
level of productive soil
throughout most of the
Midwest blows away.
The farms are no longer usable
until the dirt comes back.
- In a national disaster,
Hershey sees an opportunity.
One of his most recent
creations, the Mr. Goodbar,
is packed with peanuts.
- Yeah.
These are good.
- In a stroke of genius,
he markets the bar as
a protein-rich meal
and sells two bars for a nickel,
the same low price as one.
- Milton Hershey
used to advertise
that the nutrition in a
bar of Hershey's Chocolate
was the equivalent
of a pound of meat.
When people can't afford food
but they can still afford
a nickel chocolate bar,
they're gonna spend their money
and get something to eat.
And then other candy makers
copied some of the same ideas.
There was a candy bar
called a Chicken Dinner.
And there was a candy bar
that was called Lunch Bar.
People did turn to confections
to help fill their stomachs.
- Hershey's brilliant
strategy works just in time
and he's able to keep
the company afloat.
He's forced to reduce
hours and cancel bonuses
but unlike nearly every other
company during the Depression,
he avoids layoffs.
- When the Great
Depression begins,
Milton Hershey is
somewhat of an anomaly
because he takes steps to ensure
that the workers
in his factory town
actually are still gonna be able
to enjoy a relatively
high degree of living.
- You're doing
a great job so far.
- Hershey saw himself
as a benevolent man,
as somebody who's actually
a champion of his employees.
- The Hershey
empire is once again stable.
For now.
There's only one other candy
maker in Hershey's league.
His biggest rival, Frank Mars.
He's spent years
creating legendary bars
like the Milky Way,
Snickers, and 3 Musketeers,
producing more than 20
million of them a year.
But Frank has a problem,
a brewing power struggle
with his son, Forrest.
- The Mars company had turned
into this enormous success
and Frank Mars was
extraordinarily wealthy.
Forrest Mars was a
born, bred entrepreneur
and he took credit
for these inventions
that came out of his
father's company.
- Frank and Forrest
reunited just six years ago,
after a lifetime
of estrangement.
And Forrest's aggressive
management style
opens a new rift.
- Forrest Mars had very,
very concrete ideas
about what made a
business successful.
They were unlike anybody else's.
Forrest tied workers'
salaries directly
to company performance.
If the business happened
to fall on hard times,
for whatever reason, your
paycheck also suffered.
- So Nick is the newest
member of our sales team.
Let's give him a warm welcome.
I, for one, am glad to have him.
You see, Nick, every other
salesman in this room
is worthless.
I mean, really, it's pathetic.
I'm not sure if they're lazy
or if they're just
not really trying
or if they're just
naturally stupid.
You see, Nick, this
is why you're here.
To turn this ugly red ink
into a nice beautiful black.
Maybe then--
- Can I talk to you real quick?
- Forrest Mars was relentless
in his pursuit of perfection
and he expected everyone
who worked for him
to have that same level
of intensity and drive.
And if you didn't give it to
him, you would hear about it.
- That is no way to treat
people and you know it.
- Please, we've been short of
the projections for months.
- That doesn't give you the
right to humiliate grown men.
- I am trying to do my job.
- I don't need you undermining
my authority at every turn.
You openly contradict
me on the floor
in front of my employees?
- Your employees?
You mean our employees?
- This is my company, Forrest.
And unless you want to go
out and build your own,
it's about damn time
you show some respect.
That'll be all.
- While candy
sales remain strong,
the Depression takes its toll
on the automobile industry.
And by 1932, sales of
new cars plummet by 75%.
- People are no longer
able to afford cars.
People who were previously
upper class or middle class
now find themselves working
class, homeless, impoverished.
- In a stretch of Kentucky
known as Hell's Half Acre,
with fewer cars on the road,
one local gas station owner
makes an unexpected move
to stay afloat.
- No matter how brutal the
economy was in the 1930s,
people still needed to have hope
that things were
going to get better.
Companies still open
during this period,
new products still arise,
largely because people
are just making a living.
- His name is Harlan Sanders
and years before he's
known as the Colonel
all around the globe, serving
12 million customers a day.
- It's good chicken!
- After a long
stretch of career failure,
he drums up extra business
by selling fried chicken
out of the tiny kitchen
inside his Shell station.
- This is a guy who's gone
through a series of jobs.
He gets fired from
being a lawyer
for getting into a
fistfight with his client
in the courtroom.
He gets a job as an
insurance salesman
and gets fired again
for insubordination.
- You're gonna want to see this.
- This is not a calm guy.
He is a rough and tumble guy.
- There's one other gas station
in Hell's Half Acre
and competition for
customers is fierce.
The other station's owner
has repeatedly painted
over Sanders' billboards
and Harlan Sanders is fighting
to keep his business alive.
- Afternoon, fellas.
- In a heated turf war.
- You all right?
Get help, get help!
- Harlan Sanders
shoots a rival gas station owner
in the shoulder.
- Sebastian, get help.
Get you help!
- But one of
his own men is killed.
- The other gas station
owner was sentenced
to prison for many years.
The outcome of all this
is Harlan Sanders became
the only gas station
operator in town.
He succeeded through,
well, violence and gunfire.
- Sanders capitalizes
by focusing on
selling his chicken,
recognizing the potential
in a Southern tradition
that goes back generations.
- Fried chicken is an
outcropping of soul food.
Slaves and later sharecroppers
could not afford livestock
on their meager wages
and their meat sustenance was
either wild game or chicken,
what was known as yard bird.
- During the 20s,
widespread use of the
commercial incubator
and availability of
cheap feed turned chicken
into a more affordable
alternative to pork and beef.
Now, Sanders is counting on
it to increase his business.
- How long till
some more's ready?
- Hell, y'all only asked
me that two minutes ago,
so roughly we're
two minutes closer.
- Well, there's a whole
load of people out there
and they're antsy.
- Yeah, well, asking
me every five seconds
doesn't make it fry any faster.
- He would cook
chicken in a frying pan
and it takes 30, 40
minutes to cook them
and you got road travelers.
And the road travelers
didn't have 30, 40 minutes
to be standing there waiting.
- Convenience cures everything.
I think all these
innovators understood
that people will wait
to have it, got it,
and it's always the same.
It's about convenience and
it's about consistency.
- Sanders has
to find a way to adapt.
And when he does,
it'll be the start of
a $26 billion empire.
By 1932, Frank and Forrest
Mars' empire has grown
to $25 million in revenue,
making them the number two
candy company in America.
And they're fighting
over its legacy.
- Forrest takes credit
for the Milky Way,
telling everyone that it came
from his meeting with his dad
when they were drinking
malted milkshakes
in a diner that
afternoon in Chicago.
- I want 30%.
- Of what?
- Of this company.
I've earned it.
- Forrest, this is my company!
- 30% or I walk out that door!
- Don't.
- Yes or no?
If I leave, I'm not coming back.
- I'm sorry.
- For Frank Mars, having
Forrest, his estranged son,
try to take control
was a huge strain.
And ultimately,
Frank basically said
"You go start your own company."
- Forrest is now determined
to start his own business,
crush his father,
and go to war with
Milton Hershey.
Amazingly, by 1936, Hershey's
Depression-era profits
are more than 10
times his payroll.
- During the Great Depression,
industries are drying up
and Hershey was
really able to escape
that sort of negative
impact because fortunately,
people still wanted
to consume chocolate.
Mr. Goodbar took off
and it was a sensation.
And Hershey wasn't
affected as much.
- Here.
Will.
This is what I've had
drafted for the museum.
What do you think?
- It's good.
It's big.
- Yeah.
Wait till you see the stadium.
- Hershey invests $10 million
into expanding his town,
adding everything from
the Hershey Stadium
to the Hotel Hershey,
alienating some of his workers.
- Hershey is really out of
touch with his employees
and many see him not
as a benevolent owner
but somebody who's
exploiting their labor.
And so there's the desire
on the part of workers
to ensure that their rights
are gonna be respected.
- Look around.
We work and we work.
For what?
You think William Murrie's
not giving himself a raise?
How about Milton Hershey?
- Feeling
they deserve a fair share
of the company's success,
disgruntled workers
quietly begin to organize,
inspired by a movement
sweeping the nation.
As part of legislation
under President Roosevelt,
for the first time,
American workers are
guaranteed a minimum wage
and the right to unionize.
- The labor unions began to
push for an eight hour day.
But it wasn't just an
eight hour day for work,
it actually was divided
up into three parts.
Eight hours to work,
eight hours to rest,
and eight hours to
do as you please.
More importantly, you
understand there's going
to be a regular
paycheck coming in.
- Unions spring
up across the country
and strikes make headlines.
And in 1934, longshoremen
on the West Coast
stage a walkout that
shuts down ports
from Washington to California
for nearly three months.
And in Michigan in 1936,
striking workers shut down
a General Motors
plant for 44 days.
- There was industrial
warfare that was taking place.
Very often, the state militia,
the federal troops would arrive
and they were used
to break the strikes.
And when the strikers
would resist,
violence would break out.
People would get killed,
property got destroyed.
And this was something
that really worried
many Americans.
- On April 2nd, 1937,
workers at Hershey's
chocolate plant
turn off their machines,
lock the doors, and
stage a sit down strike.
- The sit down strike was a
first ever in Pennsylvania.
Milton Hershey at this
point in time, I mean,
that really affected him.
I mean, he was
really, really hurt.
You know, here he had
basically lived his whole life
and created this community
and really investing in the
quality of life of the worker
and didn't understand
why they were striking.
- How bad is it?
- There's a good number of
workers that still support you
but the strikers,
they have the factory.
And until that changes,
we're dead in the water.
- After everything the
company's done for them.
- What the strikers
didn't even consider was
how it was gonna affect
everyone else around them.
You had farmers from
six neighboring counties
who were still
milking their cows
and no one was
coming to pick it up.
- Local farmers sell the bulk
of their fresh milk to Hershey.
And as the strike drags on,
3.2 million pounds of
it sit unsold, spoiling.
- You had this sort of
counter-insurgence if you will.
People were so upset that they
rose up against the strike.
Farmers and business
people and housewives
who were ready to
march on the factory
and demand that they stop.
- On April 7th, 1937,
hundreds of farmers,
infuriated by the strike,
storm Hershey's
factory to end it,
armed with clubs,
bats, and ice picks.
- Let us in!
- End the strike or
we're coming in!
- Sir.
It's chaos out there.
What do you want me to do?
Sir?
- We should let it play out,
see if it resolves itself.
- Someone's gonna get killed.
- This is the last warning!
- At Hershey's factory.
- End the strike!
- The clash
between striking workers
and enraged local dairy farmers.
- We're not leaving
until you come out!
- Erupts in violence.
Leaving 25 people
brutally beaten
and others rushed
to the hospital.
The tragedy makes
national headlines.
- Hershey felt that he's
done so much for his workers.
He built this factory
town, in his mind,
to ensure that his
workers had access
to good housing,
to good schools.
His workers however didn't
necessarily see it that way.
He feels deeply betrayed
by what happens in 1937
and he won't get over that.
- In the
aftermath of the strike,
Hershey distances himself
from day to day operations
at the company he created
and his workers get
higher overtime wages
and paid vacation.
Wages are rising across
the country
and by spring of 1937,
US unemployment
has fallen from 25%
all the way to 14%.
With more money in
motorists' pockets,
Harlan Sanders' gas station
chicken could be a gold mine,
if he can figure out a new way
to speed up the cooking process.
- Who doesn't want
to change the world
and make quite a bit
of money doing it?
I think that's the brass ring.
The truth is, these men
really do truly embody
that sort of American
business leader spirit
that we sort of only reserve
this sort of reverence
for men named Carnegie
or Rockefeller.
- Sanders starts
tinkering with modifications
to an obscure
French cooking tool
called the pressure cooker.
The airtight metal
pot traps steam.
As pressure increases, so does
the boiling point of water.
This creates super heated liquid
that can reduce cook times
that should take hours
to just minutes.
- The technology of
the pressure cooker,
this is an amazing invention
that may sound silly
in the 21st century.
But we're not in
the 21st century,
we're in the first half
of the 20th century.
So he basically just
reinvented the internals
of that unit to make it work.
And it was dangerous.
It has to be monitored.
Sanders used to talk a lot
about how often those
pressure cookers exploded.
- Sanders has
to adapt the appliance
to superheat oil instead of
water to fry his chicken.
By swapping out
the rubber O rings
for much stronger metal washers,
Sanders turns the pressure
cooker into a pressure fryer.
Now he should be able
to fry his chicken
in less than 1/3 of the time.
And if he can come up
with the right recipe
it will appeal to millions.
- Guess we wouldn't really
need that shipment, would we?
- No.
- Well.
Things are good.
- Frank Mars
already sells his product
to millions.
The Mars Company is booming
with sales topping
$25 million a year.
- The Milky Way was a big hit
and Frank Mars is a
wealthy, wealthy man.
We look back at those things
and go of course it took off,
it was really a
big hit right away.
Those men and women
who start businesses,
they don't know that.
They just believe
this is gonna happen.
and in the United States,
we reward our successes
and that's one reason why
they're still remembered today.
And today in the top
five chocolate bars,
three of the top five
chocolate bars consumed
in the world come
from Frank Mars.
- Frank?
Frank?
Help, help!
We need an ambulance.
Call an ambulance now!
Frank?
- At 51 years old,
Frank Mars suffers a
massive heart attack,
leaving the future of one
of the most lucrative
food companies
in the country in doubt.
- After a bitter
power struggle with his father,
Forrest Mars was forced out
of the company they
built together.
Now living in Europe, he
finds out that Frank has died.
- By the time Forrest got
word of his father's passing,
the funeral had
already taken place.
And I think that missing
his father's funeral
and not getting to mend his
relationship with his dad
affected him very deeply
and changed his
nature to a degree,
made him perhaps
even more ambitious,
gave him more drive,
made him want to prove
himself all the more.
- Forrest is
determined to take control
of his father's company,
but first he needs
an idea big enough
to generate the fortune
he'll need to buy it.
Harlan Sanders has the
fried chicken recipe
he believes will make him rich.
Now he has to modify
it for a pressure fryer
that will cook it
three times faster.
- Damn.
- Over-fried
chicken is burnt to a crisp
and undercooked chicken is rife
with salmonella and E. coli.
- With every new development,
for every innovation in the
food production process,
it takes a while to
figure out what is wrong
with that new system.
When you're sort of
near the cutting edge,
this is the riskiest edge
and along with risk comes
a possibility of failure.
- Coating his chicken
in 11 signature
herbs and spices,
Sanders experiments with
cook time and pressure,
looking for the perfect batch.
- He is trying to make his
chicken in a very unusual way.
What Harlan Sanders
did is he applied
both a different recipe and
a different technique to it.
To cook the chicken very
uniformly
in a very short amount of time.
- After
painstaking trial and error,
the chicken comes
out crispy and moist,
all in under eight minutes.
And the world is about
to get its first taste
of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Over the course of four decades,
the Hershey Bar has
become an American staple.
And in an incredible
act of kindness,
Milton Hershey donates
over $60 million,
nearly his entire fortune,
to charity throughout his life.
- His dream was
to create a legacy
and an institution for children.
The initial focus of the
Orphan School For Boys
was really to have
children learn a trade.
Originally, it was
just orphan boys
who had lost their fathers,
and then the girls were admitted
and students of all races
and from really every
corner of the country.
And he actually viewed
these children as his own
because he and his
wife were never able
to have children of their own.
- With his legacy secure,
Hershey is ready
to pass the torch
and William Murrie
has always been
his most trusted lieutenant.
- I thought you should know,
I'm stepping down.
And Percy Staples
is replacing me.
I'm sorry, Will.
I wanted you to hear it from me.
Will you support him?
- Yeah, I'll have to head down
there and congratulate him.
He's earned it.
- I think Murrie assumed
that he would take over
from Milton Hershey someday.
What Murrie always
wanted was for his kids
to become the owners and
operators of Hershey.
And now it was obvious this
was never going to happen.
- William Murrie
helped build Hershey's empire.
Now, he's driven to
cement his own legacy.
By sheer luck, Forrest Mars has
just the thing Murrie needs.
He's back in the United
States with a new product
that'll change
both of their lives
and become the most popular
chocolate candy in America.
William Murrie,
the president of Hershey's
Chocolate Company.
- So nice to meet you in person.
- Is meeting with the
son of its biggest competitor.
- Next time, make
an appointment.
- And together,
they're about to
create a new legacy
and one of the most popular
candies in the world.
- How can I help
you today, Forrest?
- Look at these.
- Colorful.
So what?
- So they've been in my
pocket since I left New York.
- These are chocolate?
How is that possible?
- Wait, wait, wait.
You don't want my pocket candy.
Try this.
- Murrie had never
seen a candy coating
on top of chocolate before.
That was really an
unusual concept back then
and he was fascinated.
- It's impressive.
- And you know better
than anyone else
how much money this could mean.
For a 20% investment
and your guarantee
of a steady supply of
Hershey's chocolate,
Bruce, your son, he's the
executive vice president
of my new company.
- I think Bruce will go for it.
- Mars and Murrie.
That has a ring to it.
- I like it too.
- Enjoy those.
- I don't think anybody even
knows M&M actually were people.
It was, you know,
Murrie and it was Mars
who created these little
chocolates in a shell
that melted in your mouth
and not in your hands.
- To finally put
his own last name on a product,
William Murrie
quietly brokers a deal
that allows his son to buy
20% of Forrest's new company.
Forrest quickly opens a
factory in Newark, New Jersey
and pours all of his resources
into mass production of a
new milk chocolate product
that's resistant to melting.
- He purchases equipment
called panning equipment
and they were these
giant copper drums
that would spin around
and then would coat these
little pellets of chocolate,
lentil-shaped chocolates.
- Mars glazes his chocolate
in multiple thin layers of
brightly colored candy coating,
creating one of the most iconic
confections on the planet.
The M&M.
But before he can introduce
his candy-coated chocolate
to the nation.
- December 7th, 1941.
A date which will
live in infamy.
The United States of
America was suddenly
and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces
of the empire of Japan.
The United States was at
peace with that nation.
The attack yesterday
on the Hawaiian islands
has caused severe damage
to American naval
and military forces.
As commander-in-chief
of the Army and Navy,
I have directed that all
measures be taken
for our defense.
- The attack on Pearl
Harbor took most Americans
completely by surprise.
The idea a foreign
country could come in
from across the ocean and
bomb American territory
shook Americans as almost
nothing else
in the 20th century.
This was suddenly
a national effort.
- Soon, 16
million Americans will serve
and the country will turn to
the titans of American food
to fuel them to victory.
- After the bombing
of Pearl Harbor,
the leaders of
American industry watch
as the United States is
thrust into World War II.
The conflict spreads
across the globe,
claiming more than
50 million lives
and destroying more
property and farmland
than any war that's
come before it.
- As a direct result of the
devastation of World War II,
American food production
in many countries
is the only food
production available.
Consequently, the United
States really becomes
the great breadbasket
of the entire world.
- The war marks the
end of the Great Depression,
as American factories
roar to life
producing some
300,000 airplanes,
650,000 Jeeps, and
billions of food rations.
- Premodern armies spent
probably 60% of their time
foraging for food so
that they could fight.
This American supply line meant
that American soldiers
didn't have to do that.
It was a huge
strategical advantage.
It's not a stretch to say
that some of these products
helped to win the war.
- At the
forefront of the war effort
are the titans of American food.
Companies like Marjorie
Post's General Foods,
which dedicates
its Denver factory
to making 10 in one rations,
light, easily
carried kits designed
to feed groups of soldiers
three meals a day.
The H. J. Heinz Company
works with the government,
secretly converting
some factories
to make munitions and rations.
- The Heinz Company
innovated all kinds of things
that contributed
to the war effort.
They started making wings
for glider aircraft.
There were self-heating cans.
You just inserted a cigarette
into the bottom of the can
and it could heat up
rations in just minutes.
- The Kellogg's
Company produces K rations,
small individual meals
designed to feed mobile forces
like airborne troops
and tank crews.
Milton Hershey even
returns from his retirement
to oversee his
company's wartime effort
and is tasked with developing
a high calorie energy bar.
- This looks like enough
for a small country.
- Good.
- Hershey played a critical role
in supporting the military
by supplying rations.
They were working with
the war department
to actually invent something
- All right.
that would help the
soldiers remain alert
and active and well-fed
for maybe an entire day
on a single ration.
- Hershey wins the contract
for what the military
names the Ration D Bar,
eventually producing 24
million of them a week.
- It was so important
to winning the war
that the Hershey Company
received one of the
highest awards
ever given out by the military
for civilian contributions.
And that was huge.
- Driven by the war effort,
Hershey and other iconic
American companies
expand their reach
across the globe.
- We see the American
GIs stationed overseas
sort of acting as food
mascots for America.
They gave out the chocolate bars
that were in their rucksacks
and it really began this
worldwide footprint.
To a degree, you might even
call it food diplomacy.
- You could trade American
products for other items
or for sexual favors,
but it really did provide
an essential morale booster
for many of the troops, so
they just sort of cherished it.
- With the bulk
of resources dedicated
to the war overseas,
on the home front,
some foods are
increasingly scarce.
- The government
started food rationing,
where people could only buy
a certain amount of sugar,
could only get a certain
amount of cocoa, of meat.
- Anyone who was selling
food to the general public
has to adhere to these rules.
- There's a
company in New England
with a stockpile of
goods ready to step in
and feed Americans at home,
Birds Eye Frozen Foods.
- One, two, three, four,
five, six of those.
Yeah, keep stacking.
That gets filled up,
just fill it in here.
Come on in.
Excellent, thank you.
Stack it up there,
if you would, guys.
- With the
wartime economy booming.
- We're running out of
space, we can go back, okay?
- The number of American homes
with refrigerators
jumps from less than 10%
to well over half.
- I think the invention
of the freezer
is the single most
important innovation,
certainly of the
last 200 years or so.
That allowed women
to have more time,
when previously we were
tied to the kitchen,
cooking three meals
a day from scratch
because there was no way
to keep it fresh otherwise.
Once they had more
time on their hands,
they could go out and get jobs,
and that was really
a social revolution.
- Frozen food
changes the American kitchen,
making more products more
widely available all year round
at lower prices, all while
being easier to prepare.
Forrest Mars's deal with
William Murrie turns out
to be a brilliant one,
since the Hershey's
chocolate Murrie supplies
is exempt from rationing
and Forrest begins selling
to one exclusive buyer.
- Okay, just let me
know where to send it.
- The US military.
With his company producing
200,000 pounds of M&M's
per week.
- Federal spending on the war
was getting bigger and bigger.
And of course, companies,
they were delighted
to be associated with the US
War Department, the military,
to provide for some 15
million American servicemen
and women overseas.
- During the war, the
companies that were successful,
companies that can develop
strong relationships
with the government.
- When GIs
eventually return home,
the rest of America
discovers M&M's
and it becomes the most
popular candy in the country,
beating the Hershey's Bar
and even his own
father's Milky Way.
- Forrest's empire was
three times the size
of his father's
original company.
But Forrest wasn't satisfied.
He didn't have anything to do
with his dad's original company.
And he wanted that
more than anything.
- With the
millions he makes off M&M's,
Forrest buys a majority stake in
his father's company, Mars Inc,
gaining control of Snickers,
3 Musketeers, and the Milky Way.
- All those years,
he was building his own
enormously successful business
and finally Forrest manages
to reunite his empire
with his dad's original company.
So Frank Mars is
really the founder
of the Mars candy empire.
Forrest is credited very much
for making Mars the
company that it is today.
- I don't think people realize
that Mars is also
involved with Skittles,
is also involved
with lams dog food,
is also involved with
Whiskas cat food,
is also involved in
Uncle Ben's rice.
The amount of diversity alone
is enough to break your brain.
- Today, the
Mars Company generates
more than $35 billion
in sales each year,
making it one of the biggest
family owned companies
in the world and the Mars
family is the third richest
in the nation, with
a reported net worth
of more than $60 billion.
- The big thing in America,
they always talk about success.
I think we now are
affording these candy makers
their place in the
pantheon of business giants
and not just food creators.
- Fueled by American industry,
after six bloody
years of fighting,
in September 1945, World
War II comes to an end.
The United States is
now a global superpower.
- Because of World War II,
the United States becomes
the most powerful country
perhaps arguably in the
history of the world.
Literally 1/2 of global
production,
industrial production,
occurs in the United States.
The Great Depression
comes to a full close.
Employment goes sky high.
We're the only major
power in the world
that has a higher
standard of living
at the end of the war
than at the beginning.
- Harlan Sanders
has been on the leading edge
of the economic boom,
with sales of his popular
fried chicken financing a move
out of his old gas station and
into a sit down restaurant.
- Harlan Sanders
was a ne'er-do-well
for the first 40
years of his life.
He shucked around
from job to job,
nothing seemed to go
real well in his life
except that people liked
the chicken that he cooked.
- Contract here.
- Right.
Got a pen?
- Sure do.
- So just logically said
"Okay, I'll put both feet
"into the restaurant business."
- Appreciate it.
- Sanders is positioning himself
on a major roadway,
determined to take advantage
of an unprecedented cultural
shift, the car boom.
The American middle
class is growing
and more and more
people can afford cars.
Since before the war,
the number of cars on the
road has nearly doubled
to 50 million and
life in America
is completely reinvented.
- Modern Americans' life
becomes nearly impossible
without a car.
As a result of this,
businesses factor
this into their model.
So for the first time you
see drive in restaurants
where people are gonna drive up
and then the food will be
delivered to their cars.
You see this with drive
in movie theaters.
There is this idea that
the automobile becomes
almost your home away from home.
It's your private space but it
goes wherever you want to go.
And then you can get food there,
you can engage in
entertainment there,
and this is part of your life.
- In San Bernardino, California,
two brothers are trying to
cash in on the car craze,
running a drive in
barbecue restaurant
with car hops who bring
food to hungry drivers.
- Dick and Mac
McDonald were brothers
from a large family
in New Hampshire
and they came west
in search of fortune
and they wound up
buying a movie theater
outside of Los Angeles.
And they recognized
pretty quickly
that where they were
really making the money
was the concession stands.
So that's when they made the
decision to sort of pivot.
- But broken
dishes and bloated staff
are eating into their profits.
In order to make more money,
they need to move
customers more quickly
through the parking lot and
their car hops aren't helping.
- When you're on the
clock, I need you working.
Not sitting around flirting
with your boyfriends.
- What my brother's
trying to say is
we have customers sometimes
waiting upwards of 20 minutes.
Paying customers.
They should be
your primary focus.
- So in case you're
missing the point,
let me say this loud and clear.
Stop flirting.
Start working!
Are we clear?
- The McDonald brothers realized
that if they can lower overhead.
- Go on, get outta here.
- And speed up service,
they can send profits soaring.
What they don't know is
that the system
they're about to create
will someday bring in revenues
over $22 billion a year
but they'll watch it
go to somebody else.
In the postwar boom, the
American middle class
is quickly expanding
and car ownership soars
to 50 million
automobiles by 1951.
With newfound freedom,
people start moving further
away from city centers,
giving rise to the
American suburb.
Before World War II,
less than 13% of Americans
lived in suburbs.
But by 1950, that number
has nearly doubled.
- One of the things the
US government provided
as a reward to the
GIs was the GI Bill.
And the GI Bill funded
mortgages on homes
because they had gone
off to war at a time
when they would have
been starting families,
they would have
been buying houses.
And all of a sudden,
boom goes the suburbs,
where the air is cleaner,
the grass is greener,
you can have more space,
you can have a picket fence.
And this became part
of the American dream.
- 50 miles outside Los Angeles,
Dick and Mac McDonald run a
suburban drive in restaurant
called McDonald's Barbecue.
They serve 25 menu items
with a focus on
hickory-smoked pork and beef.
But everything from tamales
to peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches are available.
And with wait times sometimes
exceeding 20 minutes,
the McDonald's brothers know
they're leaving
money on the table.
- I say we get rid
of the car hops.
Turn the car hop station
into a self-service window
and let people walk up
and place their order.
- What?
The whole point of a
drive in restaurant
is so that people drive into it.
- No, the whole point
of a drive in restaurant
is so people can
drive in and eat.
Not wait in your car
for half the night.
This isn't a restaurant,
it's a glorified parking lot.
- Yeah.
Think about all the
overhead we'd be cutting.
- You know, I can't tell
if you're being serious
or you're just messing with me.
- The idea of having a person,
typically it was a woman,
deliver you food to
the window of your car
was super attractive because
people were so in love
with their cars when
they bought them
that they didn't want
to get out of them.
But car hop restaurants
did take a long time.
It was more of an outing
than it was a feeding
and that posed a problem if
you were running a business.
- 80% of our orders
in the last month
have been for hamburgers.
After that, fries and shakes
is where we make
our highest margins.
Everything else
really isn't worth
the time it takes to make it.
- You're suggesting we just
sell burgers, fries, and shakes?
- Correct.
- We can't sell
just three items.
- Why not?
- People want choice.
- No, people want good.
And people want cheap.
Say, 15 cents a burger.
- How the hell are we supposed
to survive selling those?
- Well, we'd have to
sell a lot of 'em.
- The kitchen's already
working as fast as it can.
- Well, then we
redesign the kitchen.
- What sounds like
a simple construction project
will lead the McDonald
brothers to an innovation
that will change
the way America eats
and revolutionize what will
become a $570 billion industry,
generating more economic
value than most countries.
With traffic on Route
25 driving business,
Harlan Sanders' old
fashioned sit down
fried chicken
restaurant is so popular
that he's becoming
a local celebrity.
In 1949, Lieutenant
Governor Lawrence Weatherby
gives him the honorary
title of Kentucky Colonel
and the iconic Colonel
Sanders is created.
- In the public mind,
Harlan Sanders had no past.
He did not exist before his
public image of the 1950s.
The white suit was
a self-promoting persona
that he created.
He wanted to portray
this kind of Southern
gentlemanly image.
- Sanders expands
his empire along Route 25,
opening cafes and
even a roadside motel.
- He realized that he was
not just selling chicken,
he was also selling the concept
of Southern hospitality.
And money came rolling in.
- That's 36 by
52, left to right.
Yeah, and that is
four foot square.
- The McDonald brothers
aren't just expanding
their kitchen.
They don't know it yet
but they're reinventing
the restaurant
for modern American life.
- You ready?
- Hell, I don't know.
I feel ridiculous.
- Well, if it makes
you feel any better,
you look ridiculous.
- Okay.
Let's go.
- Patties down.
- Yeah.
- And flip 'em.
- There were so many
costs associated
with opening a car
hop restaurant.
They saw this as a
chance to innovate.
- Okay, patties to buns.
- So they decided to lay
out on the tennis court
this choreography
of food preparation.
- Great, condiments.
- No, nope, I'm not ready yet.
Either that's too soon or
the patties are too slow.
- Okay, let's look
at this again.
If you come around and...
- Car hops were sort
of hamburger 101.
Now we want to do hamburger 102.
- Let's try it,
let's try it, okay.
- Okay, patties down.
- Yep.
- Flip 'em.
- Their whole idea was that
we're gonna put the hamburger
on the assembly line.
- After three
months of construction,
the McDonald's brothers
open a new restaurant,
designed to serve an entire
meal in 60 seconds or less.
Not through a car hop but
a walk up service window.
- Turn your
head to the left, please.
To your other left?
And three, two, one.
- The McDonald's
fast food restaurant is born,
the first of over 37,000
that will one day spread
around the world.
- Okay, gentlemen.
Those are done, those are done.
Flip 'em, let's go.
Where are my buns?
Thank you.
Let's get 'em dressed
and get 'em out.
Let's go, let's go, let's
wrap 'em and stack 'em.
Let's move, let's move!
- All right, keep moving,
guys, you're doing great.
- Initially, they were worried
that they'd made a
terrific enormous mistake.
But slowly but surely,
people started coming
and they saw what was going on,
that they could get
their food faster.
And it took off.
- The brothers
named their new kitchen design
the Speedee Service System,
an innovation every
bit as groundbreaking
as Henry Heinz's continuous flow
and Henry Ford's assembly line.
Their sales increase by 40%.
- We all take fast
food for granted now.
It didn't exist.
If you were gonna have a meal,
you'd have to sit
down, there was china,
there was preparation.
You know, a meal was at
least an hour of your time.
The McDonald's brothers
revolutionized a system
which let them mass
produce good food,
burgers, fries, shakes,
in a very quick way.
And then when people heard
of what was going on there,
they wanted to know
what their secret was.
- Welcome to our new
Speedee System, folks.
Come on in.
Dick, why don't
you start 'em off
and tell 'em how it goes?
- Absolutely.
Thank you guys for coming,
we certainly appreciate it.
- The brothers
sell their secrets
of the Speedee System
to anyone who wants them
for $950 a piece
and give free tours
to anyone who asks.
- My brother and I came up
with this brand
new kitchen system
to really make not only our
restaurants very efficient
but your restaurants as well.
- Among those
who get an inside look
are Matthew Burns
and Keith Kramer,
two of the men
behind Burger King.
And Glen Bell, the
founder of Taco Bell.
- What is your restaurant, sir?
- It's a little taco restaurant.
- There you go, see?
That's perfect.
What are tacos anyway?
- Mexican.
- Okay.
It's like a crunchy
sandwich, I think.
- Excellent, excellent.
- The brothers were
attracting a lot of attention,
not just from customers
but from lookie-loos
and copycats.
- McDonald's is a huge hit,
generating $350,000 in revenue.
But the McDonald's brothers
have no serious
ambition to expand.
For now.
By the 1950s,
the Cold War with the
Soviet Union is heating up.
And in 1956, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower signs
the National Interstate
and Defense Highways Act.
It authorizes $25 billion
to build 41,000 miles of
new interstate highway,
connecting the entire
nation and strengthening it.
- Eisenhower thought
this would be useful
for bringing the country
together industrially,
economically, culturally.
Much like the railroads had
been in the 19th century.
But the interstate system was
also useful for the Cold War
in national security terms.
It would allow you to
move troops around,
allow you to move
supplies around.
In fact, different
parts of the interstate
were actually graded so that
airplanes could land on them.
If the country
was every invaded,
we would have thousands
and thousands of miles
of air strips that could be
useful in thwarting an enemy.
- The project
reshapes the nation.
But when a highway
reroutes traffic,
it can spell disaster
for businesses.
And Colonel Sanders'
once booming restaurant
along old Route 25.
- How's everything, folks?
- Great, thank you.
- You enjoying that chicken?
- Yes, thank you.
- Thanks for dining with us.
- Thank you.
- Is suddenly empty.
- The interstate highway comes
and it bypasses the old
restaurants entirely.
Sales go down,
restaurants close.
People were no longer getting
off at the exit for him
because the road is moved.
And things aren't going
well for Colonel Sanders.
- On the verge of bankruptcy,
Sanders is forced to sell
his restaurant at auction
to pay his debts.
And everything
he's built is gone.
By the mid-1950s,
the McDonald brothers have
turned the restaurant kitchen
into an assembly line.
- Okay, gentlemen, those
are done, those are done.
Flip 'em, let's go.
Where are my buns?
- They broke convention
and yet it worked for them.
They understood the need
in automated culture
to deliver the goods quickly.
But also by limiting
the original menu,
it allowed them to sort of
focus on kind of quality control
and focus specifically on speed.
- All right, keep moving,
guys, you're doing great.
- Their successes
have caught the attention
of an ambitious milkshake
machine salesman
named Ray Kroc, who has
spent a lifetime looking
for the idea that could
make him millions.
- Ray Kroc was very
confident, very self-assured.
Ray was looking for
the next big thing
and that day, Ray Kroc walked up
to the San Bernardino
McDonald's,
just as any of us
who stumbled upon the next big
thing feels when we see it,
wow, eureka.
That's cool, I want
a piece of this.
- Had to come see it for myself
and meet the guys behind it.
- Flattery
will get you everywhere.
- Order to customer
in two minutes?
Fellas, been on
the road for years
and I have never seen
anything like this anywhere.
I just want to
help you share it.
- Well, we're not
hiding anything.
You know, we've got ads
in the trade papers.
Anyone who wants can
buy the basic idea
of the Speedee
System for 900 bucks.
- They had a thriving
business right there
in downtown San Bernardino.
They didn't want an empire,
they didn't need an empire.
It's really hard for
people in this day and age
to think who wouldn't
need more money?
Why wouldn't you want to grow?
Why wouldn't you get bigger
and bigger and bigger?
Well, the truth is they were
happy the way they were.
- Not the system.
McDonald's.
You guys aren't
thinking big enough.
Let me help you go nationwide.
We'll have one in every city.
McDonald's will be
a household name.
- If we had a restaurant
in every city,
there's no way that
we could make sure
they're all up to snuff.
We're stretched thin as
is with just one location.
- How 'bout you let
me worry about that?
- I don't know.
- We'll take it step by step.
I will oversee every new
restaurant personally.
Keep you in the loop.
You can be as hands on
or hands off as you want.
- Hands on.
- That's how I prefer it.
Now you're gonna need
someone you can trust.
Make me your exclusive
franchising agent
and no one will work harder.
- Ray Kroc was able
to worm his way in
to working with the brothers,
only because he was
persistent with them.
If he hadn't, we
wouldn't be sitting here
having this conversation today.
- What Kroc is offering
is a low risk, high
reward business strategy
called franchising.
- Franchising is
spreading your business
and your brand with
somebody else's money.
- Pioneered by the auto industry
which franchised dealerships,
companies charge an initial fee
plus a percentage of sales
in exchange for brand name
use and proprietary methods.
- You just sell a concept
and a name to someone else,
let them build the building,
let them buy the product, and
let them sell the product.
What they give you is a
percentage of their earnings.
- As the McDonald's
exclusive franchising agent,
Ray Kroc takes out
a hefty bank loan
to open his first
McDonald's franchise
in his hometown of
Des Plaines, Illinois.
- Kroc was the visionary who
saw I could take this system,
put it in different places
all throughout the country,
and he was onto
something that was bigger
than just a small
town restaurant
doing something different.
He saw the potential.
- Over the next four years,
Kroc supervises over
38 franchise openings
in Illinois, Arizona,
Texas, and California.
Kroc sees the potential
to grow even faster
and he wants to be the
one to profit from it
instead of lining the
McDonald brothers' pockets.
He needs full control
of the company.
Colonel Sanders can
barely make ends meet.
His restaurant is closed
and he's living off
social security,
a meager $105 a month.
Determined to reinvent
himself, he hits the road,
armed with his secret weapons.
A pressure fryer
and his secret recipe
of 11 herbs and spices.
- By the end of the 1950s,
1/3 of all Americans
live in suburbs,
up 10% in just a decade,
and busy commuters spend
roughly 25% of their food budget
outside the home.
- In 1930s America, very
few people went out to eat.
There aren't many restaurants.
And what you have in postwar
America is the explosion
of everyday restaurants.
People have more money,
they're going out more,
and they're going
out more often.
The people who want
to make money on food
have to meet the demands of
people constantly on the move.
- Colonel Sanders is looking
for a new way to adapt
to the changing times.
His last restaurant
went out of business
but he refuses to give up.
- When he was facing
financial hardship,
he literally got
in his car one day
and started driving
around to area restaurants
and saying "If you
sell my chicken
"and if you give me
four cents per chicken,
"I will teach you my
preparation technique
"and I will give
you the recipe."
- Lightly dusted so
there's no clumping.
Folks want bad chicken,
they can get it at home.
- He would make it for
the restaurant owner.
He would actually demonstrate
how it was cooked.
- Right over here is what
I call my pressure fryer.
You've heard of a
pressure cooker, right?
Same concept.
Except this one right here's
been custom engineered
to handle hot oil
under high pressure.
All right?
Eight minutes and it's done.
Don't go lifting up lid,
take a peek, trust me.
And don't go guessing
the time neither.
I know what goes on in kitchens,
I've worked in one long enough.
I use a timer each and every
time and so should you.
- He had been a salesman in
many forms throughout his years
and it was always
something he was good at.
- And that's what it looks
like every single time.
Now, let's talk profits.
How this works is
customer gets the chicken,
I get four cents
off every order.
And the rest is yours.
- I'm in.
- He went to 1,009 places
trying to license
his chicken recipe
but the 1,010th
actually picked it up.
- Hallelujah.
- Colonel Sanders
doesn't open physical locations.
He licenses his name and
recipe to existing restaurants,
selling his Kentucky
Fried Chicken
in over 200 of them
across the country.
Ray Kroc has overseen the spread
of McDonald's restaurants
across the nation,
with 228 of them now generating
sales of $37.8 million.
But the McDonald's brothers
get only a half percent
of those sales
and franchise fees
and Kroc makes a salary
of just $20,000 a year.
- He made a decent living
but it wasn't like
he was a rich man.
Other people would be
happy to just keep working
and come home and put their
feet up at the end of the day,
but he just had a sense that
there was something larger
for him to achieve,
to accomplish.
Most people who sit down
to innovate don't say
"I am going to
change the world."
It's a byproduct, not the goal.
Jeff Bezos didn't sit down
and say he's gonna
change the world.
He just had this vision
and stuck with it.
- It's Mac.
- I'm gonna cut
straight to the chase.
How do you feel about retiring?
- Retiring?
- Yeah.
I'd like to buy you
out, for a fair price.
- He's asking to buy us out.
- Hey, if you need a
minute to think about this.
- 2.7 million, cash up front.
- What?
- That's a million for
Mac, a million for me,
and 700,000 for Uncle Sam.
We won't take a penny less.
- I can't come up
with that kind of money.
- That's for the name,
the rights, everything.
We just want to retain ownership
over our original restaurant.
There's no way he's gonna
come up with the money.
If he does, we're rich.
Look, we've been in
business for over 30 years,
working seven days a week,
week in and week out.
We would like a million dollars
a piece after taxes, Ray.
We think we've earned it.
- Work with me here.
- That's our final offer.
- Ray Kroc has
the unbridled ambition
to take McDonald's global
but Dick and Mac
stand in his way.
And he needs the equivalent
of almost $23 million
in today's money
to seize his dream.
By the early 1960s, fast
food is sweeping America,
led by McDonald's and
followed by Instaburger,
which changes its
name to Burger King,
and Taco Bell a few years later.
Others, such as Dairy
Queen, Pizza Hut,
and Dunkin' Donuts are
also expanding their reach.
Now Ray Kroc has a vision
of making McDonald's
the first international
fast food restaurant,
if he can wrestle
control of the company
from the McDonald
brothers for $2.7 million.
- Ray couldn't come
up with the money.
He went out to a
bunch of bankers
who initially were
extremely hostile
because that's an
enormous sum of money.
This is 1961.
Nobody wanted to take a risk
for a hamburger company.
- Kroc is already in debt
and unable to
secure a bank loan.
In a desperate move,
he strikes a deal
with an investment group,
agreeing to pay back more
than double what he borrows.
- All of the
contingencies you asked for
have been accounted for.
- All right, there we go.
- How does it feel
to be millionaires?
- Definitely doesn't feel
terrible, that's for sure.
- It feels kind of strange,
like it's happening to
someone else and not us.
It'll always be our baby.
- Ray had this vision
of going public someday
and McDonald's is an
international brand.
Ultimately he had
to buy them out
to allow him to keep
growing the business
the way he needed
and wanted it to go.
- Listen, thanks
for letting us keep
the original restaurant.
- Of course.
- In 1961,
Kroc purchases the name
and all rights to McDonald's,
paying $2.7 million
for a company
that will someday be
worth over 150 billion.
- Congratulations, gentlemen.
- The deal leaves the brothers
only their original restaurant.
- I can promise you one thing.
The American people will never
forget the name McDonald's.
- So after this deal was done,
as a move of vindictiveness,
Ray forced them to change
their name to The Big M
and he built a McDonald's
across the street.
The brothers existed
for several more years
and then finally folded
business altogether.
- Though
Dick and Mac created it,
it's Ray Kroc who oversees
the spread of McDonald's
across the nation and the world,
becoming known as the
company's founder.
- It wasn't until Ray died
that Dick McDonald, whose
brother by then had passed away,
ever expressed any remorse
about the way things went down.
McDonald's corporation
did a whole campaign
honoring the founder
of McDonald's
and that made Dick
McDonald really angry.
- I can say safely within
my own life, you know,
these incredible brands and
their amazing innovations
have made my life
infinitely more simple.
Anywhere I go in
the United States,
if I see those golden arches,
I know what that sandwich
is gonna taste like,
I know what that breakfast
is gonna taste like.
You can get a Big Mac
or an Egg McMuffin
anywhere in the world
and it will almost
exactly be the same.
- Today, McDonald's is
the most successful restaurant
chain on the planet,
with more than 37,000 locations.
They serve more than 62
million customers a day,
generating over $20 billion
in revenue every year.
Colonel Sanders drives
over 200,000 miles a year,
overseeing more
than 600 restaurants
that sell his chicken
and pay him a four
cent royalty per piece.
- He never actually
owned restaurants.
These were other
people's restaurants
and other people actually
making the product
on a daily basis.
Four cents a chicken
doesn't sound like much
until you're selling tens of
thousands of chickens a year.
And in 1950s money, that was
an extremely healthy income.
- Sanders earns $300,000 a year
until in 1964, a group of
investors see the value
of his 11 secret
herbs and spices.
- I tell you right now,
I never thought I'd let some
slick talking son of a bitch
come down here and talk his
way into buying my business
out from under me, no sir.
I spent my whole life
building this thing.
Heck, I don't even know
who I am without it.
- That's why
it's worth every penny.
That's two million cash
and we'd like to keep
you on in a key role.
- Colonel
Sanders sells all rights
to the company he's
spent a lifetime building
for $2 million, more
than 16 million today.
- So about this key role then.
- The partnership
that buys his company
begins opening dedicated
Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurants
and for an additional
annual salary,
Sanders becomes the
iconic face of the brand.
- Had we not had television,
we never would have known
who Colonel Sanders was.
Almost immediately, they
went up into Canada.
Almost immediately,
they started to Central
and South America.
They were the first
fast food franchise
in the People's
Republic of China.
It was no longer
just Southern style
but American style chicken.
- Today, there
are more than 20,000 KFCs
in over 125 countries,
all still using
Sanders' secret recipe.
- The 11 secret herbs and spices
is still a closely
guarded secret,
said to be held in a bank vault.
There has been all
sorts of efforts
to break them down in labs.
It's not something you
can replicate at home.
You have to go to KFC.
- Over the
course of nine decades,
America has gone from
a country of farmers
to the most powerful
nation on earth.
All fueled by the visionaries
who invented new ways
to feed the masses.
- These people were visionaries
as much as they were
culinary geniuses.
They were risk takers as much
as they were businessmen.
They were pioneers in spite
of all slings and arrows
of misfortune that
came their way
and their persistence of vision,
their persistence of thought,
and pursuance of this one goal,
the product the likes of
which the world hadn't seen
or tasted or experienced before,
therein lies the inspiration
that built the country
in the first place.
- These titans of industry,
from Henry Heinz to
Clarence Birdseye,
amassed fortunes that
rival any in history.
- I often wonder if the
people behind these massive,
unbelievably successful
brands knew exactly the scope
of what they were doing
when they started out.
They had a dream, they had
an idea, they had a vision.
But they could never at
the time have imagined
just how big it would be
because nothing else
existed like it.
- In the end, they changed more
than just the way America eats.
These iconic pioneers changed
the fabric of the nation,
enabling a modern lifestyle
and feeding the American dream.
- There's no way to talk about
Americans industrial might
without the power of
the food industry.
It's hard to imagine the
nation without Heinz,
Coke, McDonald's, Mars.
These products, they're able
to cross race and class lines
with a kind of effortlessness
that few other things can do.
And if you actually think
about the kind of
quintessential American story,
that's a story of food.