page_title: Fast food
section_title: Cuisine
hierarchical_section_title: Fast food / Cuisine
caption_attribution_description: This is an image of "African people at work" from Nigeria
context_page_description: Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale and with a strong priority placed on "speed of service" versus other relevant factors involved in culinary science. Fast food was originally created as a commercial strategy to accommodate the larger numbers of busy commuters, travelers and wage workers who often did not have the time to sit down at a public house or diner and wait for their meal. By making speed of service the priority, this ensured that customers with strictly limited time were not inconvenienced by waiting for their food to be cooked on-the-spot. For those with no time to spare, fast food became a multibillion-dollar industry. In 2018, the fast food industry was worth an estimated $570 billion globally.
  The fastest form of "fast food" consists of pre-cooked meals kept in readiness for a customer's arrival, with waiting time reduced to mere seconds. Other fast food outlets, primarily the hamburger outlets use mass-produced pre-prepared ingredients but take great pains to point out to the customer that the "meat and potatoes" are always cooked fresh and assembled "to order".
context_section_description: Modern commercial fast food is often highly processed and prepared in an industrial fashion, i.e., on a large scale with standard ingredients and standardized cooking and production methods. It is usually rapidly served in cartons or bags or in a plastic wrapping, in a fashion that minimizes cost. In most fast food operations, menu items are generally made from processed ingredients prepared at a central supply facility and then shipped to individual outlets where they are reheated, cooked (usually by microwave or deep frying) or assembled in a short amount of time. This process ensures a consistent level of product quality, and is key to being able to deliver the order quickly to the customer and eliminate labor and equipment costs in the individual stores.
  Because of commercial emphasis on quickness, uniformity and low cost, fast food products are often made with ingredients formulated to achieve a certain flavor or consistency and to preserve freshness.
caption: Fastfood in Ilorin, Kwara
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