Fast food powerhouse McDonald’s has more than 36,000 franchises around the world — an astounding number. But even more staggering is the amount of french fries the chain serves up every single day across its locations — more than 9 million pounds worldwide. To create those piping-hot fries, McD’s reportedly purchases more than 3 billion pounds of potatoes annually. That’s a lot of spuds, man.
This makes McDonald’s foremost potato product the most popular item on the McMenu — a fact that has been true since the company’s early days. But going far beyond that, those Golden Arches fries have been ranked as the most popular among U.S. fast-food chain fries, and, going even further, as the biggest fast-food seller on Earth.
While there are many different types of french fries, those golden spuds from McDonald’s have been in a class by themselves for many decades. McD’s fries are so iconic, in fact, that the company launched a marketing campaign in the Netherlands in 2024 relying solely on the odor of the product. You read that right. Completely blank signs were erected near McDonald’s locations in either yellow or red — no images, no words, just those distinctive McDonald’s colors.
As people drew near the signs, they encountered that telltale fry smell being pumped through vents. The premise was that the familiar scent of those famous fries would be enough all on its own to convey the message, “This is a McDonald’s advertisement,” prompting both cravings and good memories to drive people through the doors. And, as anyone with a sense of smell who has ever eaten at McDonald’s knows all too well, the smell is instantly identifiable.
The evolution of McDonald’s french fries
Did you know that before McDonald’s fries, a different potato product was featured on the menu? Once upon a time, before any Golden Arches were ever erected over a Mickey D’s restaurant, potato chips were reportedly featured among the available food items. The fries took the place of their crunchy counterparts in 1949, and McDonald’s potato chips became a thing of the past, never (so far) to be revisited on the menu.
This was at the small burger and shake stand that was the forerunner of the McDonald’s we know today. Historically, McDonald’s didn’t transition into a massively franchised chain until after it was taken over by Ray Kroc, who purchased franchising rights from the original McDonald brothers and, later, bought them out completely.
The Golden Arches’ golden fries have undergone some changes in the many years since they were first introduced to the public. For instance, McDonald’s used to be among fast food chains that offered beef tallow fries. Nowadays, the type of oil McDonald’s uses for its fries is a blend of vegetable oils, with beef flavor thrown in to mimic the bygone beef tallow flavor.
The deep-fried spuds are also no longer hand-cut from fresh potatoes, as they were in days past. The potatoes currently used are peeled, cut, blanched, par-fried, and frozen by the company’s suppliers before being shipped out to McD’s franchises — where they’re salted and cooked into the crispy, hot goodies we eat by the millions.
