$Arcos Dorados(ARCO)$ Could you comment on more on McDonald's.....how does it stack up on the inevitables?You won't get the Inevitable in food that you will get in a single consumer product, such as blades. If I'm using a Gillette blade today, chances are I'll buy the next generation that comes out. A very high percentage of people who shave (including women) are happy with the product--it's not expensive--and if you're getting a great result, you're not going to fool around. Whereas, a great many decisions on fast food are based on which one you see. Convenience is a huge factor. So if you are going by a McDonald's or a Burger King or a Wendy's, and you happen to be hungry, you may very well stop at the one you see. So there's a loyalty factor, but it's just not going to be the same in food. People want to vary where they eat. Well, I don't, I'm happy to eat [at McDonald's] every day. They don't really have the same desire to vary their soft drink. So no knock on McDonald's; it's just the nature of the kind of industry they're in. Charlie?

[CM: I can't think of anyone before McDonald's that did what they did, create a chain of restaurants on such a scale that worked. A lot of failures ... It's a much tougher business that McDonald's is in.]

It's price sensitive, too.

[CM:  Part of that's comparative. You can spend a lot more money on hamburgers in the course of a year than razor blades. You can't save that much by changing razor blades.]

Yeah, the average person in the United States buys 27 Sensor Excels in a year, one roughly every 13 days. I don't know what the retail price is, because they give them free to us as directors (laughter), but if they're a dollar that makes it 27 bucks. Around the world, people are using cheap double edged blades, and they'll keep moving up the comfort scale ladder and Gillette is a direct beneficiary. The difference between having great shaves and so-so shaves and pocks and nicks and scratches is 10 or 12 bucks a year. That is not the type of cost that'll make people change their habits.

Source: BRK Annual Meeting 1997URL: Time: May 1997