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Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy

Ray Kroc

by Michael Polley

American fast food magnate

Starting in his fifties, Kroc built an international multibillion-dollar fast food company, McDonald’s Corporation. The company took advantage of social changes in American life and grew so large that the company altered the nation’s diet.

Source of wealth: Sale of products

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; charity

Early Life

Raymond Albert Kroc (krahk) was born on October 5, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois. He dropped out of high school to embark on a sales career in the food service industry. His career was marked by consistent success, coupled with a burning desire to take on new challenges.

First Ventures

As a young man, Kroc sold paper cups to restaurants and drugstores in the Midwest. He encountered resistance from store owners who had invested in glassware. In order to win them over, Kroc had to show them that paper cups were much more cost-effective in the long run. This began his fascination with cost analysis, which would be his major contribution to the fast food industry. He then went to work for a manufacturer of multimixers—products used to make several milk shakes at a time. He was such a successful salesman that he eventually bought the multimixer company.

Ray Kroc enjoys one of his company’s hamburgers.

ph_gliw-Kroc1.jpg

(AP/Wide World Photos)

Mature Wealth

By 1954, Kroc saw that the market for multimixers was in steady decline. His primary market, drugstore soda fountains, was quickly disappearing as the pace of American life changed. Independent drugstores had been fixtures in cities and small towns, but post-World War II growth was occurring in American suburbs. Kroc constantly monitored his sales and noticed an unusual demand for his mixers from a fast food operation in San Bernardino, California. Kroc visited this restaurant, which was run by two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald. Kroc became convinced that their type of fast food restaurant had unlimited nationwide potential. He entered into negotiations with the McDonalds, whose efforts to expand had failed. Kroc opened a McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.

McDonald’s fast food drive-in, c. 1956.

ph_gliw-Kroc2.jpg

(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The early years were fraught with obstacles and setbacks. The McDonald brothers did not share Kroc’s expansive vision and were careless about the legal intricacies of franchising. Kroc was a master salesperson, but he lacked the financial acumen needed for rapid growth. In a few years, Kroc had set up a leadership team headed by Harry Sonnenborn and Julie Martino, and steady growth began at the cost of major sacrifices by Kroc, including the end of his first marriage.

Kroc formulated the core values of McDonald’s restaurant chain: The chain would provide inexpensive food in a family-friendly atmosphere, with high standards of service and food quality. His sales background prompted him to offer extensive support to his franchises, unlike most chains, which viewed franchises simply as a source of revenue. Kroc never hesitated to terminate suppliers who cut corners on quality. He was also intensely loyal to cooperating suppliers. Some of them, like Interstate Bakery and J. R. Simplot Company, an agribusiness company that supplied Kroc with potatoes, grew into major corporations in their own right as a result of their associations with McDonald’s.

Along with product quality, Kroc made product innovation a key to McDonald’s success. The chain’s original hamburger, fries, and shake were joined by the Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, and fish sandwich. Kroc’s major product introduction was the launch of a national breakfast menu in 1977. Since then, millions of Americans have made a morning trip to McDonald’s to purchase the chain’s breakfast items. Not all the new products caught on, and Kroc was personally responsible for some of the flops, such as strawberry shortcake and pound cake. However, his insistence that innovation was key to success became part of the McDonald’s corporate culture.

After 1969, Kroc reduced his role in the corporation’s day-to-day operations but never truly retired. He would watch a nearby franchise through binoculars, and his observations led the company to add a second drive-through window at the stores. He lectured frequently and embarked on charity work in the areas of diabetes and arthritis research. Well into his eighties, he was living an active life until two strokes finally slowed him down in the year before his death in 1984.

Legacy

Ray Kroc established a model for the fast food business that has been widely copied. For most of his adult life, his McDonald’s Corporation was the face of fast food in America. The consistent growth of his restaurant chain continued after his death.

Pundits and historians will argue endlessly about the impact of Kroc’s innovations on American lifestyle and diet. On the plus side, McDonald’s provides inexpensive food and consistent quality. Although it was not a Kroc innovation, the Ronald McDonald House Charities, which began in Philadelphia in 1974, are a model of corporate service to the community. On the negative side, however, the nutritional value of fast food has drawn increasing scrutiny over the years, prompting the company to add healthier menu items and to work to change its image in the twenty-first century. The one thing that seems certain is that the McDonald’s Corporation will continue to change in the spirit of its dynamic founder, Ray Kroc.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Polley, Michael. "Ray Kroc." Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy, edited by Howard Bromberg, Salem Press, 2010. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLIW_1232369001232.

APA 7th

Polley, M. (2010). Ray Kroc. In H. Bromberg (Ed.), Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Polley, Michael. "Ray Kroc." Edited by Howard Bromberg. Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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