The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the Greater Pittsburgh area in 1967 and across the United States in 1968. It is one of the company's flagship products and

signature dish A signature dish is a recipe that identifies an individual chef or restaurant. Ideally it should be unique and allow an informed gastronome to name the chef in a blind tasting. It can be thought of as the culinary equivalent of an artist finding ...

es. The Big Mac contains two beef patties, cheese, shredded lettuce, pickles, minced onions, and a Thousand Island-type dressing advertised as "special sauce", on a three-slice sesame-seed bun.

History

The Big Mac was created by

Jim Delligatti Michael James Delligatti (August 2, 1918 – November 28, 2016) was an American entrepreneur. He was an early franchisee of the fast food restaurant chain McDonald's, opening the first of his eventual 48 branches in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, ...

, who stated later he didn’t invent the Big Mac but merely copied the double deck hamburger marketed by the Big Boy hamburger chain since the 1940s. Mr. Delligatti operated several McDonald's restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. It was created in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township. The Big Mac debuted at the McDonald's owned by Delligatti in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on April 22, 1967, selling for . It was designed to compete with Big Boy Restaurants' Big Boy hamburger. Eat'n Park was the Pittsburgh area's Big Boy franchisee at the time. The Big Mac proved popular and it was added to the menu of all U.S. McDonald's restaurants in 1968. The Big Mac had two previous names, both of which failed in the marketplace: the Aristocrat and the Blue Ribbon Burger. The third name, Big Mac, was created by Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary who worked at McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Product

The Big Mac is made with two beef patties, a "special sauce" (similar to Thousand Island dressing), shredded iceberg lettuce, one processed American cheese slice, two slices of

dill pickle A pickled cucumber (commonly known as a pickle in the United States and Canada and a gherkin in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or ...

, and minced onions, served on a three slice

sesame Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus ''Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cu ...

seed bun. On October 1, 2018, McDonald's announced that it would remove all artificial preservatives, flavors, and coloring from the Big Mac. The Big Mac is known worldwide and is often used as a symbol of American capitalism and decadence. '' The Economist'' has used it as a reference point for comparing the cost of living in different countries – the

Big Mac Index The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by ''The Economist'' as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result i ...

– as it is so widely available and is comparable across markets. This index is sometimes referred to as ''Burgernomics''.

Sauce

Big Mac Sauce is delivered to McDonald's restaurants in sealed canisters designed by Sealright, from which it is meant to be directly dispensed using a calibrated "sauce gun" that dispenses a specified amount of the sauce for each pull of the trigger. In 2012, McDonald's executive chef

Dan Coudreaut Dan Coudreaut (born November 8, 1965) is an American chef. He was the executive chef and vice president of culinary innovation at McDonald's from 2004 to 2018. Biography Coudreaut started his culinary career at the age of 14, washing dishes in a ...

released a YouTube video revealing the recipe of the sauce. It consists of store-bought

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...

sweet pickle relish A relish is a cooked and pickled product made of chopped vegetables, fruits or herbs and is a food item typically used as a condiment to enhance a staple. Examples are chutneys and the North American relish, a pickled cucumber jam eaten with ho ...

and yellow mustard whisked together with vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and

paprika Paprika ( US , ; UK , ) is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers. It is traditionally made from ''Capsicum annuum'' varietals in the Longum group, which also includes chili peppers, but the peppers used for paprika tend to be milder an ...

. In 2018, McDonald's revamped the sauce by removing potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and

calcium disodium EDTA Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) is an aminopolycarboxylic acid with the formula H2N(CH2CO2H)2sub>2. This white, water-soluble solid is widely used to bind to iron (Fe2+/Fe3+) and calcium ions (Ca2+), forming water-soluble complexes eve ...

. The sauce is occasionally available for purchase on its own for a limited time. The first time was in 2015. A tube was available for purchase but only in restaurants in Australia. It was available was in 2020. A pot was available for purchase but only in restaurants in the UK and Ireland. In 2023 and early 2024 it was available in Hungary.

Packaging

The Big Mac, along with many other McDonald's products, was first served in a collapsible cardboard container that was changed to a "clamshell" style,

polystyrene foam Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...

container in the late 1970s. Polystyrene foam containers were phased out beginning in 1990, due to environmental concerns.

Advertising

"Two all-beef patties" jingle

In 1974 McDonald's commissioned an advertising jingle which popularized the list of ingredients of the Big Mac: "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." In 2008, McDonald's restaurants in Malaysia revived the slogan. The revival included the original prize of a free Big Mac if the customer was able to recite the slogan in under four seconds. It was released in May, along with the promotional ''Mega Mac'', which had four beef patties instead of two.

McDonaldland character

McDonald's began a television advertising campaign appealing to children in 1971 featuring a fantasy world populated by Ronald McDonald and various mascots promoting McDonald's products. Some characters were also modeled in McDonald's store playground equipment. The Big Mac was represented by Officer Big Mac, a Keystone Cops-style policeman with a giant Big Mac sandwich for a head. The characters were revised after a 1973 plagiarism lawsuit brought by television puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft because of similarities to their ''

H.R. Pufnstuf ''H.R. Pufnstuf'' is a children's television series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in the United States. It was the first Krofft live-action, life-sized-puppet program (not including their previous work with the Hanna-Barbera program ''The Ba ...

'' characters. A modified Officer Big Mac continued in the commercials until 1985.

Hip-hop product placement

In 2005, McDonald's began offering

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of th ...

rewards to hip hop artists who namechecked the Big Mac in their music, giving US$5 to the artist for every time a song mentioning the hamburger was played on the radio.

EU trademark revocation

McDonald's sued the Irish fast-food chain Supermac's for trademark infringement and claimed the name would confuse consumers in European markets. On 11 January 2019, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) ruled in Supermac's favor in what has been called a "

David vs. Goliath Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant defeated by the young David in single combat. The story signified King Saul ...

" victory. McDonald's submitted a copy of the Wikipedia article about the Big Mac as part of its evidence, but the court found the Wikipedia page was not acceptable as "independent evidence". In 2023, the EUIPO Board of Appeal annulled this decision after McDonald's filed 700 pages of additional evidence, despite objections.

US sales

In 2007, Danya Proud, a McDonald's spokeswoman, said that in the United States alone, 560 million Big Macs are sold each year. This means that approximately 17 Big Macs are sold every second.

Variants

* The Mega Mac or Double Big Mac: four beef patties and an extra slice of cheese. Available in Canada, China, Egypt, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan (during promotional periods only), Turkey, Singapore, Pakistan, South Korea, Thailand, and United Kingdom. It was introduced to the United States in early 2020, but was discontinued shortly after McDonald's streamlined menus during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sandwich returned to the US market in January 2024. In Australia, it was discontinued and replaced by the Grand Big Mac. The Double Big Mac is the biggest regular hamburger the chain produces and it has 680 calories. * Big Big Mac: a Quarter Pounder–like product sold in Europe (Finland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy). Has been sold periodically in Sweden, there called "Grand Big Mac". * The Denali Mac: made with two quarter pound patties. Named after Denali in Alaska, and sold only in that state. * In India, where consuming beef is illegal in most states, the Big Mac is known as the Maharaja Mac and was originally made with lamb instead of beef; however, along with the company's other items, it is now made from chicken. * The Chicken Big Mac is a Big Mac with two breaded chicken patties sold in US, UK, Canada, Pakistan, Egypt, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and other countries as a limited-availability or promotional burger. * The Giga Big Mac, is sold in Japan. It is a larger version of the Big Mac with three times the meat of a regular one. * Little Mac or Mac Jr. is a reduction of the standard Big Mac which uses a two-piece bun and contains only one beef patty. It has been available as a limited-time promotion in the U.S. since 2017. * Grand Mac uses larger patties, at combined. It became available in the U.S. beginning in 2017 and was first made available overseas in the UK, Ireland, and Australia as the "Grand Big Mac" in 2018 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Big Mac. This and the Mac Jr. were collectively known as the "Big Mac range" in the UK. * Big Mac BLT is a standard Big Mac burger with the addition of

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

and tomato. Released in Australia and New Zealand as a promotional item in late 2017. * Big Mac Bacon was introduced in selected markets in 2018, as a limited-time option. It is essentially a Big Mac with added bacon. In 2019, this was extended in the UK to the Grand Big Mac and the Mac Jr. File:McDonalds Mega Mac Malaysia.jpg, A Mega Mac burger with a large Coke and fries in Malaysia File:Chicken Maharaja Mac Combo (3155972375).jpg, A Chicken Maharaja Mac in India File:Big Mac variations 2018.jpg, A Grand Big Mac (left) and Mac Jr. (right) alongside a regular Big Mac (center), released for a limited time in the UK as part of the 50th anniversary of the burger

Museum

On August 22, 2007, McDonald's opened the Big Mac Museum in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania to celebrate the Big Mac's 40th anniversary. The museum features the world's largest Big Mac statue (measuring 14 feet high and 12 feet wide) and has hundreds of historical artifacts and exhibits that celebrate the Big Mac. Some Uniontown residents were unhappy with the selected location.

Nutritional values per geographical location

The Big Mac is a geographically localized product. In the United States, the Big Mac has 550 kcal (2,300 kJ), 29 grams of fat and 25 grams of protein. In Australia, the burger is slightly smaller with 493 kcal (2,060 kJ) and 26.9 grams of fat, but similar amounts of protein with 25.2 grams, while the Japanese burger tops out the scales at 557 kcal and 30.5 grams of fat. Several McDonald's subsidiaries adapt the standard features of the Big Mac (from the US) to regional requirements.

Gallery

File:Big Mac hamburger - Australia.jpg, Big Mac, purchased in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, Australia File:Big Mac combo meal.jpg, A Big Mac combo meal File:Grand Big Mac.jpg, A Grand Big Mac

References

External links

Official US product information

Official UK product information

The Big Mac Index

The Big Mac Museum
in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania *
Photo Tour of Big Mac Museum
{{McDonald's Fast food hamburgers History of Pittsburgh McDonald's foods Products introduced in 1967