McDonalds Loses The Recipe For Its Special Sauce. Really.

One of the strangest stories you'll read all year may well be this Chicago Tribune story on the turnaround at McDonald's:

Fred Turner did not need to look at financial statements to know McDonald's was in trouble. He could taste it. The man who worked alongside founder Ray Kroc to turn McDonald's Corp. into a global colossus, Turner noticed when penny pinchers at corporate headquarters changed recipes to cut costs. So when McDonald's cheapened the famed "special sauce" on its flagship Big Mac sandwich, Turner knew.

But it wasn't until a new CEO brought him back from retirement 18 months ago to help lead a turnaround at McDonald's that the now 71-year-old Turner learned just how deep the trouble ran.

McDonald's had lost the recipe to the special sauce.

In the annals of marketing, the Big Mac special sauce has a sizzle like Coke's secret formula or Kentucky Fried Chicken's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. To people inside McDonald's, losing the special sauce meant a loss of connection with the company's very roots.

It didn't take Turner long to find it. He recalled the name of a California supplier who had helped develop the sauce 36 years ago. The supplier recovered the recipe.