Ralph Alvarez Quotations

We've seen limited reaction to the gas prices. We are much more of a necessity today than just an optional meal.

I am honored to congratulate the top 1 percent of McDonald's restaurant managers in the country. We are proud to pay tribute to the best and brightest managers in our system for the critical role they play in delivering a truly outstanding restaurant experience for our guests and our employees.

We've got to give consumers variety and new tastes. They're not coming just for our tried-and-true core products.

While speedy implementation is an admirable goal, we are most focused on the satisfaction of our customers and the quality of our products,

Today, we're selling $2 billion in chicken, and that's significantly up from a few years ago. We believe this trend will continue so we're putting a stronger focus on chicken rather than beef but its not at the expense of beef, rather incremental to it.

The options are better in many cases than they think.

Customers continue to tell us that they want great-tasting menu choices with new flavor and more variety. As a result, quality chicken products represent an important part of our menu.

As a brand, we have to follow the trend.

This is our way to provide them the taste that they crave.

Although I never knew Ray Kroc, his vision and legacy lives within all of us. By focusing our full-time best efforts on operations excellence, we can keep Ray's vision alive for the next 50 years.

A merger of flavors and spices has spilled over into fast food.

America has gone to spicier, bolder flavors, and this is our way to provide them the taste that they crave.

As we celebrate this 50-year milestone, I'm proud to say that our U.S. business continues to be very strong.

Beef sales have been flat year over year, while chicken product sales are growing 8 to 10 percent a year.

The growth in chicken has not been at the expense of our hamburger sales, it's been in addition to them. Hamburger sales are up slightly over that period, too.

You will see a greater variety of freshly prepared foods, with a specific focus on the chicken category and breakfast.