McDonald's arrives in NZ

The golden arches appeared for the first time in New Zealand at Cobham Court, Porirua. Big Macs were priced at 75 cents (equivalent to nearly $6 in 2016), cheeseburgers 40 cents and hamburgers just 30 cents. More than 100 eager customers were queuing outside when the doors opened at 10 a.m. Twenty years later the American fast-food giant opened its 100th outlet in the country.

Rivals Kentucky Fried Chicken (now KFC) had arrived in New Zealand in August 1971. Both organisations faced challenges in establishing themselves here. A licensing system restricted the importing of products that could be made in New Zealand. The kitchen, for example, was supposed to be sent back to the USA once local companies were able to reproduce it. As it was cemented to the floor, this would have been awkward. The resulting trade negotiations were a windfall for the New Zealand Dairy Board (the predecessor of Fonterra), which was able to offload some its cheese surplus in exchange for more imported kitchens for McDonald’s.

Strikes were also a problem in the early years. When the bun supplier shut down temporarily for this reason in 1976, McDonald’s staff scoured Wellington for substitute buns which they then cut to shape using bandsaws. The sudden closure of Petone’s Gear Meat Company in 1982 because of industrial unrest meant that meat patties had to be flown in from Australia until McDonald’s was able to buy Gear’s patty-forming machine.

New Zealand’s second McDonald’s restaurant opened in the former Auckland Savings Bank building on Queen St in Auckland in July 1977. The first drive-throughs opened the following year, in New Lynn (Auckland) and Lower Hutt. Porirua’s Cobham Court outlet closed in 2009, when it was replaced by a drive-through facility in Kenepuru Drive.