McDonald's and Burger King, two fast food giants, dominate the industry but many smaller companies such as Checkers, Subway, and Taco Bell are starting to make a large dent in fast food sales. Fast food continues to be very popular helping to ease the competition for customers. Americans are working longer hours leaving less time to cook at home. With less time on their hands consumers are turning towards fast food. Value pricing and larger portions are popular trends to meet consumer demand for cheap, plentiful food.
Companies stay competitive by attracting customers through advertising and movie sponsorship.
Aggressive global expansion has increased fast food sales and promises to provide strong future growth. Large, untapped marketplaces exist for fast food in both industrialized and developing nations. Pizza and chicken chains showed a faster growth rate than burger chains due to a more health conscious consumer. Although the financial state of the fast food industry is rosy, some companies are not faring as well. Hardee's fatal mistake was trying to be too many things for too many people.