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IN 1986, The Economist introduced “The Big Mac Index”. It is, they say, “a light-hearted guide to whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ level, based on the theory of purchasing-power parity”. It is remarkable that, since that time, a piece of retail fast food has been so consistent right across the globe that it can be reliably used as a unit of measurement.

It only took me a while to catch up. In fact, it was around 2014 that I set up my own experiment. I would start writing regular reviews of McDonald’s. Never to be published, God no! I had no desire to end up in court and there could be nothing more nauseatingly arch than a middle-class writer for a serious paper, shooting Filets ‘O’ Fish in a barrel. But the truth is, I occasionally had a Big Mac as a treat on a long drive. It restores body and spirit; it enforces a break so you don’t fall asleep and end your trip being removed from the grille of an 18-wheeler with a comb. Dammit, I quite liked them.

Well, why would I not? The Big Mac is McDonald’s best-selling product and has been for ages. Millions consume one every day and they don’t do that because it tastes revolting. If people turned away from the Big Mac, the corporate behemoth would vary the formulation to attract them back, but they don’t need to because it’s perfect. The single most highly evolved and audience-researched manufactured food product there is.

I know. The beef doesn’t taste like beef, the cheese isn’t cheese, the shreddice (yes, that’s what you think it is) is a kind of random biomass, and the bun isn’t anything you could recognise as bread. But “it is what it is” – a sui generis unit of sensory enjoyment and a beautifully pure point of reference.

My reviews were never “ironic”; nobody else would ever read them. My excursions weren’t a “guilty pleasure”, nostalgie de la boue or other morally dubious cosplay; I liked the burger. This wasn’t rigorous research, but I’m an unrepentant nerd, and if eating a Big Mac is the most commonly shared food experience on the planet, then my intention was to learn something, in exchange for clogging my arteries.

The first thing I discovered is that The Economist was right. The Big Mac never changed. But the “restaurant experience” varied widely over time. Often, as I had hoped, reflecting bigger trends. It feels like what used to be fast food has been getting slower, while the number of order errors I experience has risen. Originally, a kid took your order and typed it into a terminal before heading back to the line to assemble it. Today, you order by touchscreen or microphone, you pick up a closed bag and you return to your table and a surreal combination.

When I started reviewing, they’d get an order wrong about once a year. Today there’s a much higher failure rate. A decade ago you’d have taken the order back to get it corrected. Today, the system is so comprehensively mechanised that it can’t handle the human intervention of complaint. You just eat your McFlurry with the BBQ sauce supplied and lose the will to live. Last year, the American Dialect Society chose “enshittification” as its Word of the Year. I’m not surprised. I have watched it develop.

For decades now the company has successfully made their products more healthy. This is obviously better if McDonald’s is a significant part of your daily diet, but, as I whinge to my notebook, it’s been at the expense of all the character that made it an enjoyable occasional treat.

Artificial preservatives, flavours, sweeteners and colourings have all been reduced. Trans fats are gone and salt has also come down. These, unfortunately, were what defined fast food – the cheapest fats, carbs and proteins, rendered delicious by the genius of man’s invention. Subtract them and almost everything on the menu that can change tends gently towards the miserable.

Mechanisation

But it’s the biggest, overarching trend that has been the most disturbing – dwindling human involvement. I now order anonymously at a screen or at the drive-through. I wait, and though my ration is handed to me by a human, there’s no verbal interaction. They haven’t got robots flipping the patties yet, no AI bidding me “enjoy” my “hot beverage”, but I give it about another year.

Mechanisation and deskilling have been the core of the business since Ray Kroc, but over a decade, I now realise, my daft little exercise has witnessed the world’s most significant hospitality business preparing to remove humans from the equation.

Three months ago, I picked up my daughter at a railway station. I asked her if she wanted to join me for a Big Mac. There was a branch nearby and I’ve been enjoying car picnics with her since I had to lean over to clip her into her booster seat.

“Let’s not,” she said. “There’s a Greggs.”

I’m not ashamed to admit that, as a Southerner, I have a complete set of prejudices about Greggs. So I hesitated.

“Dad, you need a Steak Bake.”

And, it turned out, I did.

I reviewed McDonald’s, and I kept going back, because I felt it would supply, over time, insights into the hospitality industry. It has. Once you factor humans out of hospitality, it’s just food processing and logistics and I don’t want to write about that.

I think my McDonald’s project is finished. It’s no fun, and it’s not useful any more. Besides, I’ve found a new indicator. Cooked and served by humans. Meat and carbs in a handy-to-eat portion. Consistent and ubiquitous. And the mere idea of consuming one pisses off precisely the same people as the Big Mac. So next time you go to Greggs, look out for me. I’ll be the guy in the corner with a notepad and a Steak Bake. FINANCIAL TIMES