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Math Help for the Adult Student Returning to School

More adults than ever before are returning to formal education. Some want to learn what they have failed to learn in high school. Some have made the momentous decision to earn a high school diploma or to go to college for the first – or second or third – time. And some, particularly those in mid-life, want additional education in order to recharge a stalled career or start an entirely new one.

The growth of adult literacy programs, both online and community-based, has made it even more possible than ever for adults who want to learn to do so in the comfort of their own homes and communities. The decision to return to an educational environment brings with it expectations and fears, both real and imagined.

One of the more prevalent fears is math phobia. Math phobia is real, harmful and often reality-based. It is often based in one or more experiences in a person’s life which caused him pain, such as being ridiculed by powerful people or losing an important position or even a loved one because of a perceived deficit in mathematical ability. It is a serious impediment to success in the social and economic world we live in and it can devastate its victims by making it impossible to succeed in career searching or in solving problems of daily living.

Unlike language, which is heard, seen, spoken and used every day, or science, which is often taught a with hands-on approach, one does not often remember the finer points of a subject like geometry or trigonometry or algebra if they are not applied on a regular basis toward solving the practical problems of one’s life after leaving school. The fact that most math courses are taught in an abstract manner, often using mostly visual cues which are not concrete, makes it less likely for students who learn primarily by hearing or moving to remember techniques and principles.

While it often takes simply a jolt of courage and determination to return to studying math for literacy or for career advancement or for pleasure, there is help available to alleviate the pain of math phobia:

- Talking with a trusted friend about the fear is one way to proceed. People who harbor fear and do not share it are less likely to feel that it is possible to overcome the fear.

- Purchasing a book or video to be in control of the subject, literally to keep it under wraps until you are ready to look at it, gives a sense of mastery from the beginning.

- Exchanging lessons with a student who is stronger in math but less able in an area of your own strength may work. For instance, if you are a skilled baker or carpenter or tailor and a friend is stronger in math than you are, you might exchange services and tips. This will enable you to work from a position of strength rather than form weakness.

- Purchasing a short-term or long-term tutoring service to gain control over your own time and privacy while re-introducing math into your life.

- Starting with small victories, such as adding a column of figures on a grocery receipt or calculating the tip on a meal with a calculator, may help. The longest journey begins with the first small step.

- Being self-compassionate is essential. As with any phobia, one anticipates fear of loss or pain when the essence of the fear is experienced. Understand that the fear is due to a traumatic event or to a series of events which were beyond your control at a time when you did not have the power you now have.

- Don’t expect your concerns to dissipate overnight. It may take an extended period of time with ups and downs to gain control over this fear. Be patient with yourself.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that others have faced this difficulty before you and many have overcome it. Building the mathematical part of you might be an experience similar to starting an exercise plan or taking vitamins: good for you in the long run, gives you aches and pains and side effects at first, and something that might be priceless for your future well-being.

An Interview With Koko Dozo: Bringing a Little Madness – and Lots of Teamwork – Into the Mix

The rock and roll super group – a group made of musicians who are well-known for being in other groups, or, solo stars who band together into one entity, like the comic book heroes X-men or The Avengers – has a long history in rock music. The super group Blind Faith was comprised of guitar giant Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker from Cream, joined with Steve Winwood of Traffic. Clapton also joined with legendary Allman Brother Duane Allman and super drummer Jim Gordon to form Derek and the Dominoes, who recorded the classic rock album ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.’

Oftentimes in jazz, musicians from different groups (who are great solo artists in their own right) will come together and create great music. However, this is not always the case. Groups made up of great performers – those used to working alone or being the “star” – can sometimes be less than the sum of their parts, as egos clash and the group becomes like a bad basketball team, where everyone wants to score and nobody wants to pass or play defense. Koko Dozo, however, is a dream team. Each member of the group, which includes Polarity/1, Rubio and Amy Douglas, is an equal contributor, with the entire group utilizing each member’s skills and talents. Once more, there are no egos clashing. Quite the opposite occurs, as the members provide support and encouragement for one another. On the group’s debut ‘Illegal Space Aliens,’ Koko Dozo shows that individual and group expression can meld into one, and – just like a good jazz band, baseball team or this year’s Boston Celtics – can result in something even greater than the sum of its parts.

[Mark Kirby] What kind of music was played in your homes when you were growing up?

[Polarity/1] I started off with my dad’s records. My earliest faves were Cab Calloway, Tito Rodriguez and other salsa music, Elvis, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Then there was the radio and television shows like American Bandstand, Soul Train and the Ed Sullivan Show.

[Rubio] My parents were fundamentalists and went through this period of being afraid of having any secular music in the house, so for a while we had nothing but this old 8-track with Pat Boone and Bob Dylan’s one Christian album. No, I’m not making this up. I used to stay up nights just surfing the dial on this crappy transistor radio I had and absorbing everything I could get my ears on.

[Amy Douglas] I come from a family that played instruments. Growing up, I was fortunate to have parents that liked music quite a bit. My dad was all about jazz – Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Brubeck, Duke, Bird and Diz, etc. – so I get my love of jazz from him and my grandparents. My mom was a huge fan of artists like Carol King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Jim Croce and Elton John (still one of my personal heroes to this day). She was also a huge fan of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, Philly soul, and anything Gamble and Huff touched, from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes to the Spinners and all in-between. She liked Black music in general. Also heavily on rotation in the house growing up was Aretha Franklin, who served as my initial influence into opening up my head and wailing away, and Stevie Wonder, who was one of my greatest influences of all.

[Mark Kirby] What incident or moment ignited your passion to perform or otherwise get into music?

[Polarity/1] When I was in high school I discovered Brazilian music, Appalachian folk, Eric Dolphy, 16th century Japanese court music, Bob Dylan and Mahavishnu Orchestra. My thing with Dylan got me to buy a guitar so I could express my rage over the inconveniences of life on earth. Within weeks I was writing clueless protest songs about important political issues I never bothered to read about.

[Rubio] I’ve had a passion for music as long as I can remember. I used to go nuts over it even as an infant apparently. I started taking lessons at age four. When I was 11, I formally made a decision to dedicate myself to music. I was classically trained on piano and organ as a kid. As a teenager, I started getting heavily into metal and prog rock and things like that.

[Amy Douglas] I think growing up as a child in the 1970s served as a constant source of inspiration and was a catalyst. From just listening constantly to my parents’ music, and then turning on the TV or radio, it seems like virtually EVERYTHING influenced me. But if I had to narrow it down to a few choice moments, I’d say playing Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life,” seeing Chaka Khan on Soul Train, seeing Bowie everywhere on TV, hearing all the Beatles’ albums, and most important, hearing Led Zeppelin, my favorite band of all time. Between the TV shows Soul Train, Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, there was no shortage of good stuff to draw on. I think the combination of hearing all this stuff as a child was like a bomb going off. Certainly, I take almost all my visual cues from Donna Summer, P-Funk and Chaka.

[Mark Kirby] Describe your musical backgrounds. Did you study formally in school? Or take lessons?

[Polarity/1] When I was 14 I bought a plywood guitar with a book of tunes that had chord diagrams, and then I starting writing my own songs. A couple of years later I took a few lessons and learned how to play major and minor seventh chords so I could add some jazz and bossa nova flavor to my songs.

I spent a semester at Berklee School of Music in Boston, which was a weird move, being that I couldn’t functionally read music and my brain isn’t wired for formal learning. But I could write notation a little bit and tried to prove that I was Berklee-worthy by hot-dogging the homework projects – like scoring an arrangement of Monk’s “Epistrophy in 7/4,” which nobody could play. I was redeemed a few years ago when I notated a 7/4 thing for Pete McCann and Gregg Bendian to play on “Munton’s Revenge” on the Polarity/1 ‘Speechless’ album. They nailed it pretty quickly. What was good about the year at Berklee was that even though I couldn’t learn in a normal way, [with] what they were throwing at me, I was able to sort of “visualize” all these concepts like chord functions and voicings. It all came in handy much later on in unexpected ways when I would create quite complex things without “knowing how” and be taken seriously. In that sense I’ve had a very real musical training.

[Rubio] I had lessons up until I was 16, mostly classical music. When I was younger, we had a deal where I got free lessons in return for performing for Kawai, showcasing their instruments in malls and conventions. Because of that, I had some performance training as well. By my 17th birthday I was playing full-time with bands and earning my keep.

[Amy Douglas] I started doing music from age six onward. I first discovered I could sing when my elementary school teacher wrote my mom a letter saying, “Ask Amy to sing for you sometime.” My grandmother taught me piano initially, and from there I took lessons. From 6th grade on, I was one of those disgusting “Music Big Concert School” kids. I started learning music theory in junior high and I got a lot of credit from the state of New York, won the Louis Armstrong and Eubie Blake music scholarships and then went to study Jazz Theory and Composition at New York University. UUUUUUGH.

[Mark Kirby] What were some of your earliest musical experiences?

[Polarity/1] My earliest gigging experiences in high school were great antidotes for bad looks and bad conversation-starting skills. Music-making has been all good except for one rough period where I got a real-world lesson about where my strengths and weaknesses were. My songs started off in folk and rock. Then they got jazzy and funky. Then I wanted to bring elements of the late John Coltrane, Mingus and Mahavishnu. So I created a band with all jazz guys instead of folk-rockers which was most[ly] cool – except that I wasn’t that kind of player with that kind of training. Since my only interest in the guitar was for songwriting, I had no chops and couldn’t contribute much on the instrumentals the other guys were writing. And they needed a serious jazz/metal guitar player. So I got fired from my own band. It triggered a move into a radically different direction, where I had to start from scratch and discover what my own creative process was, make a commitment to it and then succeed on my own terms. And with that kind of focus, I found that there were a whole lot of different things that I did really well with my own vision and method and developed big chops with it.

[Rubio] It was rough from age 11 to 16 because I basically had to disappear into a hole and hibernate in order to switch from organ to piano, and didn’t perform live at all during that time. It was a definite case of withdrawal. My first few rock bands were rough, too. I was nicknamed “Wendel” because that was Gomer Pyle’s actual first name in the TV show. I’m sorry to say that at the time the name fit perfectly. I was more than a bit naive. I’m very grateful for those times, though, because I learned a lot very quickly.

[Amy Douglas] I played my first pro gig at age 12 and did my first pro session at 13. I told my parents I didn’t want to go to school anymore. From then onwards, it got darker. My first pro gig was at a supper club on Long Island. Between dishes of steak and shrimp, I sang a combination of jazz standards and disco classics. It was a blast.

[Mark Kirby] Describe your individual musical journeys from the first bands to Koko Dozo.

[Polarity/1] I started off writing songs until I hooked up with the SIM (Studio For Interrelated Media) department at Mass Art (Massachusetts College of Art) when I was discovering Cage, Xenakis, George Crumb, Joan LaBarbera, Steve Reich and others. I made a decision to not use melody, harmony or rhythm in any way that resembled songs or jazz. And since I was also a visual artist at that time, the art scene provided venues for this new direction. So my visual stuff, music and lyric-writing got re-channeled into performance art and composing for choreographers and experimental theater. I also formed a group called Vocal Repercussions that did totally improvised vocals-only performances, where abstract vocal sounds morphed into words, free-associated texts, rhythms and harmonies. Then I moved to NYC and got obsessed with groove. I studied African drumming, played in samba bands and had a hip-hop thing with rapper D.A.V. called Medicine Crew. Hip-hop was an easy transition because I was already into looping and collaging, but in an abstract mode, and my performance poetry worked in a rap format. I was always into groove since I was little – funk, salsa, African drumming, calypso, samba and reggae. A couple years later I got back into songwriting and all that stuff merged into songs and electronica when I became Polarity/1. And that led to film scoring and collaborating with Rubio on Audioplasm, which led to Koko Dozo. And recently I circled back to the art scene, scoring for Battery Dance Company and Quorum Ballet from Lisbon.

[Rubio] My very first band I was in was ruled with an iron fist by this absolute tyrant and it was a real wakeup call. Those were also very fun times, of course. After a couple years in my hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, I moved to Toronto for six years before coming to NYC in 1997. I’ve done just about every kind of gig you can think of in that time, both live and in the studio.

[Amy Douglas] I had been gigging steadily in my own bands, ranging from funk to rock. I was part of a group of downtown artists known as the “Homocorp” scene. I was [also] a part-time member of the Squeezebox Band – the same Squeezebox they recently released a film about at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival – and basically spent my 20s either gigging, doing sessions or hanging with drag queens and getting into trouble.

[Mark Kirby] How did the three of you meet and get together?

[Rubio] I had met Polar in 2003 through a mutual friend, a drummer called Curtis Watts, with whom we had a mutual interest in samba. We hit it off and started working together sporadically. In the fall of 2005 we decided to completely redesign Polar’s studio with my help and work on each other’s projects. That blossomed into us working together on some production stuff, mainly soundtracks for documentaries, and an instrumental collaboration called Audioplasm.

[Polarity/1] Rubio and I were working on the Heavy Meadow album at the same time he was working with Amy in her “Red Hot Mama” show. He suggested the three [of us] get together to see if we could come up with something interesting.

[Amy Douglas] I had a show called “Red Hot Mama,” which was a rock vaudeville show, and I had hired Rubio as the keyboardist, and we really hit it off. When the show folded, he introduced me to Polar, the two of them having done a project called Audioplasm. I am way happier in Koko Dozo than I’ve been in just about anything I’ve ever done. We got together on a super hot summer day in 2007 and realized we had a great capacity to make incredible music based on our collective musical passions and influences, which also include a group devotion to Brazilian music, Afrobeat, and Latin music, so we really had quite a stewpot brewin’ by the time we started to write songs.

[Mark Kirby] How did you arrive at the name Koko Dozo?

[Amy Douglas] At the risk of hurting myself by patting myself on the back, I have to take the credit for it. My ex-boyfriend had mentioned wanting to do an avant-garde project and he threw out Koko Dozo as a trial name. When we were thinking about names, I threw it out there, and the guys liked it. I think it’s fab. [My ex-boyfriend] did so little for me while we were together, [so] at least he gave the band a great name.

[Mark Kirby] What is the musical concept of the band?

[Amy Douglas] It’s a really huge one. First and foremost it’s to virtually force people to have to really listen to what we do, and to help audiences that have been pandered to and been reduced to some sort of lowest common denominator grow some brain cells back. The music is obviously a ton of fun, it puts you in the mood to do some serious dancing and there’s more than a healthy dose of silly swirling around in the mix. But really listen to the words and you’ll hear that we have some deep issues we’re struggling with and we do address them in our songs, ranging from our distrust of our government, to the polarization of culture in our home of New York City and a whole bunch of other things. Our musical concept is to shrink the globe as well; the internet has made the world a smaller place and we wanted to find a way to fuse cultures, languages, styles and influences together in a way that reeks of New York City life, but will appeal to an audience that is truly global.

[Rubio] Generally, Polar handles the arrangements and the drum and percussion elements. I come up with harmonic ideas, play most of the keyboard/bass-type things and mix the tracks. Amy is the voice of the project and handles melodies. Obviously, there is a lot of overlap. There is one song I arranged and produced (“Boomchi”). Polar and I each do one lead vocal (“Kokodozonomics” and “The Heart,” respectively). There are songs where Amy did the chord structure and played keyboards. Polar is very avant-garde and always pushing the envelope. Amy is very melodic and tends to create things that are catchy and mass-appealing. I’m kind of in the middle.

[Polarity/1] We have an open source attitude about music. Between us, we’ve worked just about every genre category there is and we don’t feel any compulsion to restrict where we go. Each song has a strong identity of its own but they all sound like Koko Dozo. Conventional wisdom dictates that our way of working will guarantee that we’ll never find an audience. But we know that’s bullshit. The post-corporate online music business has made it okay for people to trust their intuitions about the music they discover. An amazing variety of people are responding. We’re reaching young electro heads, world-beaters, dance-clubbers, boomers, electronica geeks, and po-po-pomo gonzoid hairy-backed noiz gimps living in the basement of the basement on diets of sticky buns and penis butter and toe jam sandwiches. The parents and the kiddies like us too. And we write in different languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese) which reaches out even further. Also we have this whole bargain-basement-space vibe that makes things really fun.

[Mark Kirby] What is the story behind the Sun Ra-esque (a new word!) dress and alien mythology?

[Polarity/1] Here’s the story: we came from outer space and landed on Earth to exploit its resources – and for other reasons that we’d rather not discuss. We’re from the low-rent part of the universe where you wear whatever is lying around in the alley on garbage pickup day. That, coincidentally, is the same galaxy where Sun Ra came from.

[Amy Douglas] {Laughter} Well…the word “alien” permeates much of what we do and we like to riff on the term. Alien, as we mean it internally, is the feeling of not being comfortable in one’s skin, feeling out of synch with the world around you, feeling like the constant outsider. And we decided to really play with the word, and we decided that a space age “alien” theme would suit us wackos pretty well! Besides, it gives me an excuse to wear wigs and glitter, which I feel I was born to do.

[Rubio] We really wanted to put the fun and craziness back in music. Too many projects take themselves too seriously these days, which is BEYOND ironic.

[Mark Kirby] Describe the writing, recording and producing process for this CD. Were you all in the same studio at the same time?

[Polarity/1] Since we work in my studio, I’m there for the whole process. Generally, I show Amy and Rubio a track that I think would work for Koko Dozo. It might be just a sketch, almost complete, or anything in between. I might have complete lyrics as well (“Face On The Dancefloor,” “Kokodozonomics”) or just a rough idea for lyrics that Amy and I will collaborate on (“Shine”). Or Amy and/or Rubio will take one of my tracks and turn it into a song (“Second Time,” “The Heart”). Sometimes Amy has a song and I build a track around her chord changes, melody and vibe and help with the lyrics (“Down”). Rubio and Amy wrote “Boomchi” together and Rubio produced that track.

Rubio is the guy with the engine-ear. He comes in when a track is pretty much laid out and starts tweaking things. Then he’ll add his keyboard solos, sometimes bass and the more harmonically dense keyboard stuff. I do keyboard parts that don’t require big chops. Then Amy comes in and we track vocals. Rubio and I finish the mixes with Rubio in the big chair. Joe Lambert masters everything at Trutone Studios. He’s done all the Polarity/1 stuff and Heavy Meadow too. Lately Amy has been playing some keyboard parts.

[Rubio] As far as recording, we were generally all there. I personally NEVER record final voices without someone else in the room to give me a sense of perspective. Polar did a lot of editing on his own but often that job fell to me as well. The mixes were generally done with Polar and me, and we would send roughs to Amy for her input.

[Mark Kirby] What is your live show like? Is there a full band?

[Amy Douglas] It’s a full-on brigade of madness! We operate as a trio, currently using our tracks and the addition of live keys and guitar, bass and percussion.

[Rubio] I would love to have a live band, but right now circumstances and logistics just don’t allow it. The three of us do perform live, though. Polar plays electronic drums, guitar and hand percussion, I play keyboards live and we all sing. We use versions of the tracks that are customized for live shows, so what you hear on stage is not necessarily exactly what you’d hear on the studio version.

[Polarity/1] Our shows are fun for us, and I suppose audiences love to watch grown people making funny noises up there and bouncing around like homeless space mutants. Amy’s wigs and Rubio’s Viking helmet are worth the price of admission. And gazing at my psychedelic death-ray yarmulke is a life-affirming way to blow off shabbos.

http://www.kokodozo.com
http://www.myspace.com/kokodozo

Cake Business – A Great Way For Fun and Profit

Some of us are gifted with creative hands that could produce the loveliest of all creations. Some are gifted with the taste for all things delicious and transform simple dishes into a fine piece of artwork. Now if you have these two gifts together, perhaps you would like to share it with others. Why don’t you consider starting your very own cake business?

Cakes are essential in many types of occasions, including weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties and more. People will surely go out of their way to buy the best one out there in the market. And if you’re a gifted baker, this is your opportunity to solve other people’s needs. Plus, you can make good money using your skills. You will have the freedom of time and not be confined to a regular eight hour job and you can also work at the convenience of your own home. If this perked your interest, then might as well read on and see the steps to start your very own cake business.

Step1 – Make sure you have all the necessary supplies.

Most of the basic necessities in baking are pretty obvious. Of course you have to have an oven, an electric mixer and the basic baking tools. These baking tools include pans, mixing bowls, and spatula, wire whisks, piping bag and accessories, moulds and many others. It is essential to buy a variety of baking pans of all shapes and sizes so you can have many options to choose from when you have already started your cake business. Cake decorating tools are also a must in starting your new business. Try to find a supplier for all these tools as well as your ingredients and research the best deals they could offer.

Step2 – Get professional training and enrol yourself in a cake decorating class.

This is a way to hone your skills and learn many new things and trends about baking. There are many community colleges, baking schools and even grocery stores where you can get the most affordable classes. The key here is to try and find your niche or the type of cakes you’re most interested at and attend a class for that particular niche. By attending these classes, you can definitely brush up old techniques as well as learning new ones along the way.

Step3 – Practice makes perfect.

Take the time to test various recipes and take down notes to remind yourself of what went well and what ingredient or procedures you can tweak in the future. Try out different cake and frosting recipes and techniques until you have found the best of them all. And even as you go along with your business, keep on practicing so that your skills will continue to be enhanced and you continue growing.

Step4 – Promote your products by word of mouth.

Spread the word around that you have begun a new endeavour. Now is the time to show-off and tell your friends and family. There’s no better place to start other than with your own network of friends and families. Once they have tried out your cakes, and are pleased with what you have produced these people will automatically refer others to you. When this happens, you have to be ready with some business cards with your complete contact information to help build name and maximize brand retention.

Step5 – Make use of online marketing tools.

Post pictures of your work and pricing information on this site. It may not be your own domain, but you can always start a blog and join social networking groups. Once people see pictures and read descriptions and pricing of your work, it is easier to build up a customer base in addition to your networking.

How To Host a Fun Disney Princess Party Featuring Sleeping Beauty

Planning a little girls’ birthday party can be time consuming and expensive.  If you are on a budget, or have all of the money in the world to spend on your little princess, this article will give you some good ideas for hosting a pink and frilly birthday party.

First, you will need to hand out invitations to guests who will be invited to come to the party.  You can make your own cards using scrapbooking or card making techniques, or you can simply print them up on your computer or buy them at your local dollar store.  If the sky is the limit with your budget, you could include a pink Sleeping Beauty dress for each girl that is coming to the party.  For boys, you could include a prince cape or prince costume.  If you don’t include a costume, you will want to make it clear that each child is to wear his or her favorite costume to the party.  If adults will be coming to the party, you could request that they dress up as their favorite fairytale or princess character.  Believe it or not, there are many places that sell adult princess dresses!  You will want to find an adult costume that is machine washable so you can also use it for a Halloween costume.  If you would like, you could have an actor from a local theatre company or local college come and play the real Sleeping Beauty.

Your little girl should wear something extra special and beautiful to the party.  You will want to make sure she is all decked out in the most beautiful Disney Sleeping Beauty princess dress with matching accessories like, fullness slip, wand, crown, tiara, dress up shoes, and even a white hooded cloak.

Next, you will need decorations.  Of course, you will want pink streamers and pink and white balloons since Sleeping Beauty’s (and many little girls) favorite color is pink.  You can make it simple and just tie helium balloons to chairs and some out side.  Your local dollar store may prove invaluable as you can find princess decorations and plates, napkins, forks, cups, and other princess items at bargain prices.  You can also find many of these items on sale at your local store.  Many times, these items can be purchased online so you don’t even have to go to the store!

What to eat?  Of course, you will want a pink cake or a cake shaped as Sleeping Beauty.  You can get a Barbie doll with blonde hair and bake a pink (strawberry) cake in a bowl to look like a dress and then decorate it with frosting, roses, and sparkle sprinkles.  If you don’t have time to make it yourself, these cakes are readily available at your local grocery store or bakery.  Many bakers will make custom cakes, so you could look into that possibility as well.  If you are cooking for a large crowd, you could do cupcakes as well as a cake.  You will want pink ice cream and other pink finger foods to serve at the party.  Pink lemonade would compliment any menu perfectly.

After gifts are opened, you will want to remind your little girl to thank each of her guests for the gifts they gave with a thank you card and maybe a parting gift which could be something like a sleeping beauty doll dress, princess wand, pink makeup or nail polish, or something they can take home as a favor.

Burger King

History

Main article: History of Burger King

The predecessor to what is now the international fast food restaurant chain Burger King was founded in 1953 in Jacksonville, Florida as Insta-Burger King. The original founders and owners, Kieth J. Kramer and his wife’s uncle Matthew Burns, opened their first stores around a piece of equipment known as the Insta-Broiler. The Insta-Broiler oven proved so successful at cooking burgers, they required all of their franchises to carry the device. After the original company began to falter in 1959, it was purchased by the Miami, Florida franchisees James McLamore and David R. Edgerton who renamed the company Burger King. The duo ran the company as an independent entity for eight years, eventually expanding to over 250 location in the United States, when they sold it to the Pillsbury Company in 1967.

Under Pillsbury, the company underwent several attempts at reorganization or restructuring in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While these efforts were effective in the short term, many of them were eventually discarded resulting in Burger King falling into a fiscal slump that damaged financial performance of both Burger King and its parent. Poor operating performance and ineffectual leadership continued to bog the company down for many years, even after it was acquired in 1989 by the British alcoholic conglomerate Grand Metropolitan and its successor Diageo. Eventually, the institutional neglect of the brand by Diageo damaged the company to the point where major franchises were driven out of business and its total value was significantly decreased. Diageo eventually decided to divest itself of the money loosing chain and put the company up for sale in 2000.

In 2002, a troika of private equity firms led by TPG Capital, L.P with associates Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners agreed to purchase BK from Diageo for $1.5 billion (USD), with the sale becoming complete in December of that year. The new owners, through several new CEOs, have since moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, the first major move was to re-name the BK parent as Burger King Brands. The investment group initially planned to take BK public within the two years of the acquisition, however this action was delayed until 2006 due to several reasons. On 1 February 2006, it was announced that TPG planned to take Burger King public by issuing an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Between March 2004 and March 2009, the company experienced a score of consecutive profitable quarters that were credited with successfully re-energizing the company, however with the slowing of the economy during the financial crisis of 2007-2010 the company’s business has declined while its immediate competitions, McDonald’s, has grown.

Franchises

Main article: Burger King franchises

When Burger King Corporation began franchising in 1959, it relied on a regional franchising model where franchisees would purchase the right to open stores within a defined geographic region. These franchise agreements granted BKC very little oversight control over its franchisees and resulted in issues of product quality control, store image and design and operations procedures.

This model remained in place until 1978 when the company hired McDonald’s executive Donald N. Smith to help revamp the company. Smith initiated a restructuring of all future franchising agreements, disallowing new owners from living more than one hour from their restaurants, preventing corporations from owning franchises and prohibiting franchisees from operating other chains. This new policy effectively limited the size of franchisees and prevented larger franchises from challenging Burger King Corporation as Chart House had. Smith also sought to have BKC be the primary owner of new locations and rent or lease the restaurants to its franchises. This policy would allow the company to take over the operations of failing stores or evict those owners who would not conform to the company guidelines and policies. However, by 1988 BKC parent Pillsbury had relaxed many of Smith’s changes, scaled back on construction of new locations and stalling growth. Neglect of Burger King by new owner Grand Met, and its successor Diageo, further hurt the standing of the brand, causing yet more financial damage to BK franchises.

By 2001 and nearly eighteen years of stagnant growth, many of its franchises were in some sort of financial distress. The lack of growth severely impacted BKC’s largest franchise, the nearly 400 store AmeriKing; by 2001 the company, which until this point had been struggling under a nearly $300 million debt load and been shedding store across the US, was forced to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The failure of AmeriKing deeply affected the value of the BKC, and put negotiations between Diaego and the TPC Capital-lead group on hold. The developments eventually forced Diaego to lower the total selling price of BKC by almost three quarters of a billion dollars. After the sale, newly appointed CEO Bradley Blum initiated a program to help the roughly 20% of its franchises, including its four largest, who were in financial distress, bankruptcy or had ceased operations altogether. Partnering with the California-based Trinity Capital, LLC, the company established the Franchisee Financial Restructuring Initiative, a program to address the financial issues facing BK’s financially distressed franchisees. The initiative was designed to assist franchisees in restructuring their businesses in order to meet financial obligations, focus on restaurant operational excellence, reinvest in their operations and return to profitability.

Individual owners also took advantage of the AmeriKing failure; one of BK’s regional owners, Miami-based Al Cabrera, purchased 130 stores located primarily in the Chicago and the upper mid-west region, from the failed company for a bargain basement price of $16 million, or approximately 88% of their original value. The new company, which started out as Core Value Partners and eventually became Heartland Foods, also purchased 120 additional stores from distressed owners and completely revamped them. The resulting purchases made Mr. Cabrerra BKB’s largest minority franchisee and Heartland one of BKH’s top franchises. By 2006, the company was valued at over $150 million, and was sold to New Yorkased GSO Capital Partners. Other purchasers included a three way group of NFL athletes Kevin Faulk, Marcus Allen and Michael Strahan who collectively purchased 17 stores in the cities of Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia; and Cincinnati-based franchisee Dave Devoy, who purchased 32 AmeriKing stores. After investing in new decor, equipment and staff retraining, many of the formerly failing stores have shown growth upwards of 20%.

Legal issues

Main article: Burger King legal issues

The Hoots’ family Burger King restaurant in Mattoon, Illinois, one subject of major litigation by Burger King.

Burger King has been involved in several legal disputes and cases, as both plaintiff and defendant, in the years since its founding in 1954. Situations involving these many legal topics have affected almost every aspect of the company’s operations. Depending on the ownership and executive staff at the time of these incidents, the company’s responses to these challenges have ranged from a conciliatory dialog with its critics and litigants to a more aggressive opposition with questionable tactics and negative consequences. The company’s response to these various issues has drawn praise, scorn, and accusations of political appeasement from different parties over the years.

Controversies and disputes with groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over the welfare of animals, governmental and social agencies over health issues and compliance with nutritional labeling laws, and unions and trade groups over labor relations and laws. These situations have touched on legal and moral concepts such as animal rights, corporate responsibility, ethics, and social justice. While the majority of the disputes did not result in lawsuits, in many of the cases the situations raised legal questions, dealt with legal compliance, or resulted in legal remedies such as changes in contractual procedure or binding agreements between parties. The resolutions to these legal matters have often altered the way the company interacts and negotiates contracts with its suppliers and franchisees or how it does business with the public.

Further controversies have occurred during the company’s expansion in the Middle East. The opening of a Burger King location in the Israeli-occupied territories lead to a breach of contract dispute between Burger King and its Israeli franchise; the dispute eventually erupted into a geopolitical conflagration involving Muslim and Jewish groups on multiple continents over the application of and adherence to international law. The case eventually elicited reactions from the members of the 22-nation Arab League; the Islamic countries within the League made a joint threat to the company of legal sanctions including the revocation of Burger King’s business licenses within the member states’ territories. A related issue involving members of the Islamic faith over the interpretation of the Muslim version of canon law, Shariah, regarding the promotional artwork on a dessert package in the United Kingdom raised issues of cultural sensitivity, and, with the former example, posed a larger question about the lengths that companies must go to insure the smooth operation of their businesses in the communities they serve.

A trademark dispute involving the owners of the identically named Burger King in Mattoon, Illinois led to a federal lawsuit; the case’s outcome helped define the scope of the Lanham act and trademark law in the United States. An existing trademark held by a shop of the same name in South Australia forced the company to change its name in Australia, while another state trademark in Texas forced the company to abandon its signature product, the Whopper, in several counties around San Antonio. Legal decisions from other suits have set contractual law precedents in regards to long-arm statutes, the limitations of franchise agreements, and ethical business practices; many of these decisions have helped define general business dealings that continue to shape the entire marketplace.

Charitable contributions and services

Burger King has two of its own in-house national charitable organizations and programs. One is the Have It Your Way Foundation, a U.S.-based non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation with multiple focuses on hunger alleviation, disease prevention and community education through scholarship programs at colleges in the US. The other charitable organization is the McLamore Foundation, also a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation that provides scholarships to students in the US and its territories. Additionally, there is an optional literacy program that partners individual restaurants with community schools in the US.

In various regions across the United States, Burger King and its franchises have aligned themselves with several charitable organizations that support research and treatment of juvenile cancer. Each year these coalitions hold a fund raising drive called A Chance for Kids, in which Burger King restaurants sell lottery-style scratch cards for $1. Each card produces a winning prize that is usually a food or beverage product, but includes (rarer) items such as shopping sprees or trips. In the Northeast, BK has affiliated itself with the Major League Baseball team the Boston Red Sox and its charitable foundation, the Jimmy Fund. The group runs the contest in Boston. In the New York city area it operates the contest in association with the Burger King Children’s Charities of Metro New York and the New York Yankees. Funds raised in these areas go to support the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute located in Boston. In Nebraska, the company is affiliated with the Liz’s Legacy Cancer Fund BK Beat Cancer for Kids program at the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. In the Pittsburgh region it funded the establishment of the Burger King Cancer Caring Center, a support organization for the families and friends of cancer patients.

Products

Main article: Burger King products

The Whopper sandwich, Burger King’s signature product

When the company began, its menu consisted predominantly of hamburgers, French fries, soft drinks, and desserts. In 1957, BK added its signature item, the Whopper. This quarter pound hamburger was created by Burger King founders James McLamore and David Edgerton as a way to differentiate BK from other burger outlets at the time. The sandwich became famous enough that BK eventually adopted the motto “Home of the Whopper”.

One of Donald N. Smith’s first changes to the menu was the addition of the Burger King Specialty sandwich line in 1979, which significantly expanded the breadth of the BK menu with many non-hamburger sandwiches including new chicken and fish offerings. The new specialty sandwich line was one of the first attempts to target a specific demographic, in this case adults 18-34, members of which would be willing to spend more on a higher quality product. One of Smith’s other significant contribution to the menu was the addition of a breakfast product line, which until this time was not a market Burger King had entered. Besides the addition of the Croissan’Wich in 1983, the breakfast menu remained almost identical to the McDonald’s offerings until a menu revamp in 1985. This expansion introduced BK’s Am Express product line which added new products such as French toast sticks and Mini-muffins.

As the company expanded both inside and outside the US, it introduced localized versions of its products that conform to regional tastes and cultural or religious beliefs. International variations add ingredients such as teriyaki or beetroot and fried egg to the Whopper, beer in Germany, Italy and Spain, and halal or kosher products in the middle East and Israel. To generate additional sales, BK will occasionally introduce limited time offers (LTOs) that are versions of its core products or new products intended for either long or short term sales. Items such as the Texas Double Whopper and various sandwiches made with mushrooms and Swiss cheese have been rotated in and out of its menu for several years while products such as its 1993 offering, a Meatloaf Specialty Sandwich and limited table service along with special dinner platters, failed to generate interest and were discontinued.

A meal including small french fries, a Whopper, Jr., a drink, and packets of Heinz ketchup

In order to appeal to as many demographic groups as possible and better compete with its fast food restaurant competitor Wendy’s, Burger King added a multi-tiered value menu in 1993 with items priced at 99, $1.99 and $2.99 (USD). The project, called Operation Phoenix, was an attempt to add not only a value menu but a line of value meals. The tiered menu was replaced with a more standard value menu in 1998, while the value meals were separated into their own menu segment. This value menu featured seven products: Whopper Jr., 5 piece Chicken Tenders, a bacon cheeseburger, medium sized french fries, medium soft drink, medium onion rings and small shake. In 2002 and 2006, BK revamped its value menu adding and removing several different products such as chili and its Rodeo Cheeseburger. Many of these items have since been discontinued, modified or relegated to a regional menu option. To better appeal to a more adult palate and demographic, BK introduced several new products to its menu in 2003, including several new or revamped chicken products, a new salad line and its BK Joe brand of coffee. Some of the new products, including its Enormous Omelet Sandwich line and the BK Stacker line, brought negative attention due the large portion size, amounts of unhealthy fats and trans-fats. Many of these products feature higher quality ingredients like whole chicken breast, Angus beef, natural cheeses such as Cheddar and pepper jack. Again, not all these products, such as the BK Baguette line, have met corporate sales expectations.

Advertising

Main article: Burger King advertising

A Burger King advertisement on a bus stop in Seoul, South Korea.

Burger King has employed varied advertising programs, both successful and unsuccessful, since its foundation in 1954. During the 1970s, output included a memorable jingle, the inspiration for its current mascot the Burger King and several well known and parodied slogans such as Have it your way and It takes two hands to handle a Whopper. Burger King introduced the first attack ad in the fast food industry with the help of then unknown Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1981. The television spot, which claimed BK burgers were larger than competitor McDonald’s, so enraged executives at McDonald’s parent company, they sued all parties involved. Starting in the early 1980s and running through approximately 2001, BK engaged a series of ad agencies that produced many unsuccessful slogans and programs, including its biggest advertising flop Where’s Herb?.

Burger King was a pioneer in the advertising practice known as the product tie-in with a successful partnering with George Lucas’ Lucasfilm, Ltd. to promote the 1977 film Star Wars in which BK sold a set of glasses featuring the main characters from the film. This promotion was one of the first in the fast food industry and set the pattern that continues to the present. BK’s early success in the field was overshadowed by a 1982 deal between McDonald’s and the Walt Disney Company to promote Disney’s animated films beginning in the mid 1980s and running through the early 1990s. In 1994 Disney switched from McDonald’s to Burger King, signing a ten film promotional contract which would include such top ten films as Aladdin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994) and Toy Story (1995). A partnership in association with the Pokmon franchise at the height of its popularity in 1999 was one of the most successful in the industry, rivaled only by McDonald’s/Ty Beanie Babies cross-promotion in 19992000.

Shortly after the acquisition of Burger King by TPG Capital, L.P. in 2002, its newly hired CEO Bradley (Brad) Blum set about turning around fortunes of the company by initiating an overhaul its flailing advertising programs. One of the first moves by the company was to reinstate its famous Have it your way slogan as the corporate motto. BK handed the effort off to its new advertising agency, Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky (abbreviated as CP+B). CP+B was known for having a hip, subversive tack when creating campaigns for its clients, exactly what BK was looking for. One of CP+B strategies was to revive the Burger King character used during BKs 1970s/1980s Burger King Kingdom children’s advertising campaign as a caricatured variation now simply called “the King”. The farcical nature of the Burger King centered advertisements inspired an internet meme where the King is photoshopped into unusual situations that are either comical or menacing, many times followed with the phrase Where is your God now?.

Additionally, CP+B created a series new characters like the Subservient Chicken and the faux nu metal band Coq Roq featured in a series of viral web-based advertisements on sites such as MySpace and various BK corporate pages to compliment the various television and print promotional campaigns. One of the more unique promotions that CP+B devised was the creation of a series of three advergames for the Xbox 360. Featuring company celebrity spokesman Brooke Burke, the games sold more than 2 million copies, placing them as one of the top selling games along with another Xbox 360 hit, Gears of War. These innovative ad campaigns, coupled with other new promotions and a series of new product introductions, drew considerable positive and negative attention to BK and helped TPG and its partners realize about $367 million in dividends.

Headquarters

Company headquarters in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida

Burger King is headquartered in a nine-story office tower by Miami International Airport. Elaine Walker of the Miami Herald stated that the headquarters has a “Burger King” sign that drivers on Florida State Road 836 “can’t miss.” In addition the chain planned to build a neon sign on the roof to advertise the brand to passengers landing at the airport. 130 employees began working at the Burger King headquarters on Monday July 8, 2002, with the remainder to move in phrases in August 2002. Prior to the moving to its current headquarters in 2002, Burger King had considered moving away from the Miami area; Miami-Dade County politicians and leaders lobbied against this, and Burger King stayed in the area.

The company’s previous headquarters were in a southern Dade County campus described by Walker as “sprawling” and “virtually hidden away.” The former headquarters were located in the Cutler census-designated place; since then the area incorporated into the Village of Palmetto Bay. The former Burger King headquarters as of 2007 houses rental offices for several companies.

By 2006 Burger King had announced that it planned to move its headquarters to a proposed office building in Coral Gables. By 2007 Burger King instead renewed the lease in its existing headquarters for 15 years. Burger King planned to consolidate employees working at an area near Miami International Airport and at a Dadeland Mall-area facility into the current headquarters by June of that year. Instead Bacardi USA leased the headquarter complex, a 15-story building.

International operations

Countries with Burger King restaurants

Key:

Red: Current BK countries

Orange: Former BK countries

Yellow: Hungry Jack’s countries

Burger King has a longstanding presence at U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force installations worldwide, dating back to the 1980s under a contract with Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Today, while other chains such as Taco Bell, Popeye’s, and Subway have a presence on military bases, virtually every major Army and Air Force installation hosts a BK restaurant.

Countries currently with Burger King locations

 Afghanistan (Army and Air Force Exchange Service)

 Andorra

 Argentina

 Austria

 Australia (known as Hungry Jack’s)

 Bangladesh

 Bahamas

 Bahrain

 Bolivia

 Brazil

 Bulgaria

 Canada

 Colombia (Reentered March 2008)

 Chile

 Czech Republic

 People’s Republic of China ()

 Hong Kong ()

 Costa Rica

 Cyprus

 Denmark

 Dominican Republic

 Ecuador

 Egypt

 El Salvador

 Faroe Islands

 Germany

 Gibraltar

 Guatemala

 Guyana

 Honduras

 Hungary

 India

 Indonesia

 Iraq (AAFES)

 Ireland

 Israel

 Italy

 Jamaica

 Japan

 Jordan

 Kuwait

 Lebanon

 Malaysia

 Malta

 Mexico

 Netherlands

 Aruba

 Netherlands Antilles

 Curaao

 Sint Maarten

 New Zealand

 Nicaragua

 Norway

 Oman

 Panama

 Paraguay

 Peru

 Philippines

 Poland

 Portugal (Franchised by Ibersol Group)

 Romania

 Russia (Franchised by Shokoladnitsa)

 Moscow

 Qatar

 South Korea

 Saudi Arabia ( )

 Singapore

 Spain

 Saint Lucia

 Sweden

 Switzerland

 Republic of China ()

 Thailand

 Trinidad and Tobago

 Turkey

 United Arab Emirates

 United Kingdom

 Cayman Islands

 United States

 Guam

 Puerto Rico

 Uruguay

 Venezuela

Countries formerly with Burger King restaurants

 Australia: Burger King branded restaurants operated 19972003 violating franchise agreements, sold and rebranded to Australian Burger King franchise Hungry Jack’s following legal action

 Finland: Burger King operated in Helsinki for a short period in 1980s

 France: Burger King decided to leave France in 1997 and closed their 39 French outlets in 1998

 Greece: Burger King operated in Greece for a short period in the early 1990s

 Ukraine: Burger King operated in Kiev for a short period in 2006.

 United States Virgin Islands: Burger King left both St. Croix and St. Thomas in 1997

 Iceland: Burger King has closed its doors on the 31st of December 2008. news link

See also

Florida portal

Companies portal

Food portal

Drink portal

Book:Burger King

Books are collections of articles which can be downloaded or ordered in print.

McDonald’s – Largest competitor in hamburger restaurants, third in fast food restaurants

Subway – Second largest competitor in fast food restaurants

Wendy’s – Third largest competitor in hamburger restaurants

Yum! Brands – Largest competitor in fast food restaurants

References

^ a b c Burger King Holdings (BKC) annual SEC income statement filing via Wikinvest

^ a b Burger King Holdings (BKC) annual SEC balance sheet filing via Wikinvest

^ “Burger King Holdings Inc (BKC)”. Morningstar, Inc.. http://quote.morningstar.com/Quote/Quote.aspx?pgid=hetopquote&ticker=BKC. Retrieved 2008-10-03. 

^ a b BKC publication (October 2007). “BKC 2008 Annual Report” (PDF). Burger King Holdings. http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/87/87140/BurgerKing_2008_AR_FINAL.pdf. Retrieved 2008-12-23. “11,550 Restaurants in 71 countries and territories” 

^ Smith, Andrew F. (30 August 2006). Encyclopedia of junk food and fast food (1st ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 2728. ISBN 0313335273. http://books.google.com/books?id=mYc4aw7tnekC&pg=PA172&lpg=PA172&dq=In+1952,+Matthew+Burns+of+Long+Beach,+California,+invited+his+stepson,+Keith+G.+Cramer&source=bl&ots=pSgzQ49j8g&sig=JDU82XU3jMgALQaPF1Kb9lQ7IIY&hl=en&ei=dAA2SvDyE5WJtgfXhNn4Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1. Retrieved 2009-06-14. 

^ a b c John A. Jakle; Keith A. Sculle (27 March 2002). Fast Food (1st ed.). JHU Press. pp. 116119. ISBN 080186920X. http://books.google.com/books?id=0nYcgnWKWXgC&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 2009-06-15. 

^ a b c Ester Reiter (March 1996). Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan Into the Fryer, 2nd edition. McGill-Queen’s University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0773513876. http://books.google.com/books?id=oBj-sPpJDQcC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=donald+smith+burger+king&source=web&ots=FhXPdZvuKU&sig=Oc4o4BHLk8esIyTgcjWHuSzdXKA&hl=en. Retrieved 2008-04-06. “Burger King’s early franchising arrangements proved to be troublesome” 

^ Siler, Julia Flynn (11 August 1988). The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/11/business/business-people-deal-for-friendly-offers-official-chance-to-shine.html?pagewanted=1. Retrieved 25 January 2010. 

^ a b c d FundingUniverse.com. “History of Burger King Corporation”. Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/burger-king. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Mark Trumbull (2006-11-13). “Are private buyouts good for the economy?”. Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1113/p01s01-usec.html. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Grace Wong (2006-05-12). “Burger King IPO set to fire up”. CNN Money. http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/12/markets/ipo/burger_king/index.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-30. 

^ Julie Jargon (1 February 2010). “As Sales Drop, Burger King Draws Critics for Courting ‘Super Fans”. Wall Street Journal. Yahoo.com. http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108728/burger-king-draws-critics. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 

^ Eric N. Berg (1988-11-04). “Burger King’s Angry Franchises”. The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DD1530F937A25752C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2008-04-06. “The franchisees complain that, in recent years, the chain’s growth has come almost entirely from the franchisees, not from the corporation.” 

^ a b Shelly Reese (2005-02-04). “It was broken, and new owner’s fixing it”. The Cincinnati Enquirer. http://www.boj.com/articles/franchise/burger_king_fixed.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 

^ Jo Napolitano (2002-12-22). “A Fighter for Burgers and Fries”. The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D81E3DF931A15751C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-04-06. “The AmeriKing bankruptcy has added uncertainty to the prospects for Burger King, which relies heavily on franchise owners of its restaurants.” 

^ Phyllis Berman (2003-04-15). “Burger King’s Flame-Broiled Future”. Forbes Magazine. http://www.forbes.com/2003/04/15/cz_pb_0415burger.html. Retrieved 2006-04-06. “The all-cash deal was originally pegged at $2.2 billion but got negotiated down to just $1.5 billion.” 

^ Elaine Walker (2002-01-03). “Burger King bolstering its many weak franchisees.”. Knight-Ridder. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-81297863.html. Retrieved 2008-04-06. 

^ Burger King Holdings on Bison.com (2003-02-03). “Burger King Launches Franchisee Financial Restructuring Initiative”. Press release. http://www.bison.com/press_burgerking_02032003. Retrieved 2008-04-06. 

^ “BK franchisee-led group buys 131 AmeriKing units”. Nations Restaurant News. 2003-12-15. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_50_37/ai_111507745/. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 

^ “Major Burger King Franchisee To Sell 240 Restaurants”. The Miami Herald. 2006-12-17. http://franchise.business-opportunities.biz/2006/12/29/major-burger-king-franchisee-to-sell-240-restaurants/. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 

^ Keith Reed (2007-08-17). “Faulk joins other black athletes to buy Burger King franchises”. The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/08/17/faulk_joins_other_black_athletes_to_buy_burger_king_franchises/. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 

^ Trish Hall (1991-08-08). “How Fat? Burger King to Post Answers”. The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6DA163CF93BA3575BC0A967958260&scp=1&sq=Burger Center for Science in the Public Interest&st=cse. Retrieved 2008-05-30. “Executives of Burger King, based in Miami and owned by Grand Metropolitan P.L.C. of London, announced the plan yesterday after five months of discussion with New York [City]‘s Consumer Affairs Commissioner, Mark Green.” 

^ Amy Bennett Williams (2008-04-28). “Burger King gets farm workers petition; Daughter of Burger King VP says dad wrote anti-coalition postings”. The Fort Meyers News-Press. http://www.news-press.com/article/20080704/NEWS01/107040011/1014/business. Retrieved 2008-04-28. “At Senate hearings on farm conditions held by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., earlier this month, Eric Schlosser, author of the best-selling “Fast Food Nation”, praised Yum! and McDonald’s for working with the coalition and urged Burger King to do the same. “The admirable behavior of these two industry giants makes the behavior of Burger King … seem completely unjustifiable.”" 

^ Amy Bennett Williams (2008-04-12). “Tomato pickers feeling spied on”. The Fort Meyers News-Press. http://www.news-press.com/article/20080704/NEWS01/107050001. Retrieved 2008-06-09. “In recent months, theye [the CIW and supporter Student/Farmworker Alliance] been vilified online and in e-mails that can be traced to the Miami headquarters of Burger King, a company that’s opposed the groups efforts.” 

^ Elaine Walker (2008-05-18). “Burger King’s virtual missteps `a cautionary tale’”. The Miami Herald. http://bm.com/Newsroom/Lists/BMNews/DispForm.aspx?ID=3713&nodename=B-M in the News&subTitle=Burger King’s Virtual Missteps ‘a Cautionary Tale’. Retrieved 2008-05-24. “The fast-food chain fired Grover and company spokesman Keva Silversmith last week for violating the company’s Code of Business Ethics and Conduct.” 

^ Andrew Martin (2007-03-28). “Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28burger.html. Retrieved 2008-03-09. “In what animal welfare advocates are describing as a “historic advance”, Burger King, the world’s second-largest hamburger chain, said yesterday that it would begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers that did not confine their animals in cages and crates.” 

^ AP Wire (2007-03-28). “Burger King Offers Cage-Free Food.”. Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261903,00.html. Retrieved 2007-08-21. “”Suppliers will hopefully respond by producing more of these types of products”, [PETA spokesman Matt] Prescott said.” 

^ James Joyner (2005-09-18). “Burger King Stops Selling Anti-Muslim Ice Cream”. Outside the Beltway. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/_burger_king_recalls_sacrilegious_desserts/. Retrieved 2008-06-04. “Burger King has stopped selling ice cream cones after a single idiot Muslim was offended by the shape of the swirl on the lid.” 

^ Gale Group (2008-02-11). “PETA Praises Safeway for Adopting New Industry-Leading Animal Welfare Policies”. Business Wire. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_Feb_11/ai_n24256165/. Retrieved 2008-03-09. “June 2001: Following PETA’s six-month “Murder King” campaign, Burger King agrees to adopt standards that are in some areas better than those adopted by McDonald’s.” 

^ AP Wire (2007-05-17). “Burger King responds to trans-fat cooking oil suit”. CTV. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070517/burgerking_transfat_070517/20070517?hub=Health. Retrieved 2007-09-28. 

^ a b Andrew Martin (2008-05-24). “Burger King Grants Raise to Pickers”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/business/24farm.html?_r=1&sq=Burger King Tomatoes&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2008-05-24. “At a news conference on Capitol Hill, the hamburger chain, based in Miami, said it would pay tomato prices adequate to give workers a wage increase of 1.5 cents a pound.” 

^ Julia Goldman (1999-09-01). “Dumping West Bank store puts Burger King in a pickle”. The Jewish News Weekly. Archived from the original on 2008-02-05. http://web.archive.org/web/20080205091033/http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/11939/edition_id/230/format/html/displaystory.html. Retrieved 2007-10-01. “When the Burger King Corp. pulled its name from a franchise in the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim on Thursday of last week, it claimed the reason was breach of contract.” 

^ a b Israel Faxx news report (1999-08-30). “Jews Plan to Boycott Burger King.”. Israel Faxx. http://www.allbusiness.com/middle-east/israel/394208-1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-04. “The Zionist Organization of America is considering calling for a worldwide Jewish boycott against Burger King, to protest its surrender to Arab threats and the closure of its branch in Ma’aleh Adumim.” 

^ a b Candice Williams (2007-07-07). “U.S. Muslims Call For Burger King Boycott.”. Israel Faxx. http://www.allbusiness.com/middle-east/israel/711850-1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-27. “A Washington-based Muslim group, American Muslims for Jerusalem, says it is calling on Muslims and Arabs to immediately boycott the fast food restaurant chain, Burger King, for a second time. In a news conference, the group says the Miami-based fast food…” 

^ Megan Steintrager (2000-11-05). “Middle East Muddle”. Nations Restaurant News. http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/eating-drinking-places/4284932-1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-24. “… and the Arab League has threatened to revoke contracts for 84 Burger Kings throughout the Middle East.” 

^ John Innes (2005-09-07). “Burger King recalls ‘sacrilegious’ desserts”. The Scotsman. http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Burger-King-recalls-sacrilegious-desserts.2662082.jp. Retrieved 2008-05-10. “The offending lid was spotted in a branch in Park Royal last week by business development manager Rashad Akhtar, 27, of High Wycombe.” 

^ Edward Rothestien (2006-02-20). “History Illuminates the Rage of Muslims”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/arts/20conn.html?scp=1&sq=Burger+King+Islam+Ice+Cream&st=nyt. Retrieved 2008-06-04. “Today’s Iconoclasts want to oppose all attempts to display forbidden images, whatever their provenance. And for a variety of reasons, many in the West readily defer. Last fall, for example, Burger King withdrew its ice cream from restaurants in Britain after receiving complaints from Muslims that the swirling illustration on the package resembled the name of Allah.” 

^ John Jermaine (2003-11-20). “The burger king and queen of Mattoon”. The Illinois Times. http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:2686. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

^ Restaurant Business News (2003-05-30). “Burger King Re-flags Australian Stores”. AllBusiness.com. http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/eating-drinking-places/4275422-1.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29. “Hungry Jack’s was BK’s original franchisee in Australia, but the company could not use the Burger King name at the time because it was already trademarked.” 

^ Rupert M. Barkoff (2005-01-25). Fundamentals of Franchising. American Bar Association. p. 23. ISBN 1590314093. http://books.google.com/books?id=eVmD3FAG3zgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Fundamentals+of+Franchising&rview=1&sig=ACfU3U2UKUN5gnUt4-cPAoDFwTLrGxClSA#PPR3,M1. 

^ “471 U.S. 462″. Findlaw. 1985-05-20. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=471&page=462. Retrieved 2008-03-04. 

^ Larry L. Teply; Ralph U. Whitten (2002). Cases, Text, and Problems on Civil Procedure. Denis F. McLaughlin. Wm. S. Hein Publishing. p. 244258. ISBN 0837737257. http://books.google.com/books?id=r7Psaabe_U8C&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=Burger+King+v.+Rudzewicz&source=web&ots=gZD77z7Rok&sig=RMA00heD0UxxajBgfKF8dzhh_zo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA245,M1. 

^ “the HIYW foundation”. Burger King Holdings. http://www.bk.com/companyinfo/community/hiywfoundation.aspx. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

^ “the McLamore Foundation”. Burger King Holdings. http://www.bk.com/companyinfo/community/mclamore.aspx. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

^ “Burger King A Chance for Kids”. The Jimmy Fund. 2007-07-01. http://www.jimmyfund.org/cor/special/burger/default.html. Retrieved 2007-09-28. 

^ “Burger King Children’s Charities of Metro New York to help Small Fries become Large Fries”. The Jimmy Fund. 2002-07-26. http://www.jimmyfund.org/abo/press/pressreleases/2002/072602b.asp. Retrieved 2008-03-29. 

^ “BK Beat Cancer for Kids”. University of Nebraska Medical Center. http://www.bkbeatcancerforkids.org/. Retrieved 2008-03-09. “The BK Beat Cancer for Kids Program was established through the generosity of Burger King Restaurants and is one of many outreach and fundraising programs benefiting Liz’s Legacy, the Fund to Advance Cancer Research at the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center.” 

^ “Burger King Cancer Caring Center”. http://www.cancercaring.org/aboutbkccc.html. Retrieved 2007-09-28. 

^ “the History of Burgers”. worldsgreatesthamburgers.com. http://www.worldsgreatesthamburgers.com/index/content/id/8. Retrieved 2008-03-28. “The Hungry Jacks “Aussie Burger” has tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, bacon, beetroot, egg, ketchup and a meat patty.” 

^ “Prima-Agri to Produce Halal Beef for Regional Fast Food Chains”. The Halal Journal. 200-10-10. http://www.halaljournal.com/artman/publish_php/article_894.php. Retrieved 2007-10-01. 

^ Zawya.com (2004-05-02). “Burger King UAE launches the king of all burgers across the UAE”. Press release. http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20040802080316. Retrieved 2007-10-01. 

^ “The Kosher Whopper Boosts Burger Sales in Israel.”. AllBusinees.com. 2000-07-01. http://www.allbusiness.com/wholesale-trade/merchant-wholesalers-nondurable/621140-1.html. Retrieved 2007-10-01. 

^ Glenn Collins (1997-08-28). “As Business Gets Lean, a Big King Dares Big Mac”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20071030031723/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F14F83E550C7B8EDDA10894DF494D81. Retrieved 2007-08-21. 

^ “Burger King Debuts New 99 ‘Great Tastes’ Menu”. Press release. 1998-03-17. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/3-16-98/435564&EDATE=. Retrieved 2007-10-09. 

^ “Burger King promotes new menu”. South Florida Business Journal. 2002-09-12. http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2002/09/09/daily63.html. Retrieved 2007-10-09. 

^ BKC publication (July 2007). “US Regional Menu Nutritional Brochure” (PDF). Burger King Holdings. http://www.bk.com/Nutrition/PDFs/regional_menu.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Herb Weisbaum (2006-07-06). “Burger King Launches Line Of Jumbo High-Rise Burgers”. KOMO Radio (Seattle, WA). Archived from the original on 2008-02-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20080206123616/http://www.komoradio.com/news/archive/4191016.html. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Bruce Horovitz (2005-05-03). “Burger King to offer whopper of a breakfast sandwich”. USA TODAY. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2005-03-27-burger-king_x.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Heather Lalley (2005-09-06). “Word of the day: Meat’Normous”. The Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA). http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/healthbeat/archive.asp?postID=761. Retrieved 2007-09-01. 

^ The Gale Group (2004-08-04). “Chains beef up with Black Angus”. Nation’s Restaurant News. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_35_38/ai_n6189447/. Retrieved 2007-07-16. 

^ Kevin Newcomb (2004-10-07). “Burger King’s Back With New Buzz”. ClickZ.com. http://www.clickz.com/3404771. Retrieved 2007-06-10. 

^ a b Bruce Horovitz (2004-03-22). “Burger King zaps menu, image”. USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2004-03-21-burgerking_x.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

^ J. Jonathan Gabay (October 2006). Gabay’s Copywriters’ Compendium. Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 582. ISBN 9780750683203. http://books.google.com/books?id=emVzMXpBUoIC&pg=PT582&lpg=PT582&dq=two+hands+to+hold+a+whopper&source=web&ots=RhYRX3HvwD&sig=asdTJpFqWxkBe6WAzr7Kw2DOl70&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 

^ BKC publication (2007-03-12). “Marketing and Advertising History”. Burger King Holdings. http://www.bk.com/companyinfo/content/corporation/history.html. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ Shep Hyken (2006-05-26). “Customer service and more”. BlogSpot. http://shephyken.blogspot.com/2006/05/hold-pickles-hold-lettuce-special.html. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

^ “Sarah Michelle Gellar”. NNDB.com. http://www.nndb.com/people/511/000023442/. Retrieved 2007-10-02. 

^ “Herb Comes Out of Hiding”. Time Magazine. 1986-02-03. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,960538,00.html. Retrieved 2004-10-24. 

^ Mark Schoifet (1986-01-01). “Herb falls flat, but Wendy’s breaks another winner”. Nation’s Restaurant News. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_v20/ai_4083228/. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ “Burger King Corporation, Turnaround under Grand Met in the 1990s”. FundingUniverse.com. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Burger-King-Corporation-Company-History.html. Retrieved 2007-11-26. 

^ Jason Kandel (1999-11-12). ” “Kids swarm Burger King as Pokmon-mania strikes”. Los Angeles Daily News. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/KIDS+SWARM+BURGER+KING+AS+POKEMON-MANIA+STRIKES.(News)(Statistical…-a083629023″. Retrieved 2007-12-02. 

^ “Burger King Corporation Selects Crispin Porter + Bogusky As Lead Creative Advertising Agency”. HispanicBusiness.com. 2006-01-23. Archived from the original on 2008-01-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20080121215651/http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=14482. 

^ “Burger King in MySpace campaign”. Mad.co.uk. 2006-05-13. http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/Home/Articles/be50c1fbeab44225a611af5edb1d4ae7/Burger-King-in-MySpace-campaign.html. Retrieved 2007-08-27. 

^ Peter Delegge (2005-07-31). “Burger King Goes Tasteless”. MarketingToday.com. http://marketingtoday.blogspot.com/2005/07/burger-king-goes-tasteless.html. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 

^ Robyn Tippins (2006-08-03). “Burger King’s Table Guests”. AllBusiness.com. http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/advertising/3877633-1.html. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 

^ Coola (2006-12-21). “More than 2 Million Games Sold Nationwide…”. XBox365.com. http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=GGHHHLHurH12210217. Retrieved 2007-10-27. 

^ “CP+B website, ://Work section.”. Crispin Porter + Bogusky. http://www.cpbgroup.com/. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 

^ B.L. Ochman (2004-04-12). “Burger King Has Fun With Subservient Chicken Viral Campaign”. http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2004/04/burger_king_has_fun_with_subse.asp. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 

^ Evelyn Nussenbaum (2007-04-23). “Is Burger King Perverting Children?”. Madisdon Avenue*West. Archived from the original on 2007-10-29. http://web.archive.org/web/20071029201343/http://blogs.business2.com/madisonavenuewest/2007/04/is_burger_king_.html. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 

^ “We’re Listening”. Burger King. http://www.bk.com/companyinfo/content/contactus.html. Retrieved January 31, 2009. 

^ a b Walker, Elaine. (July 9, 2002). “Burger King Begins Switch to New Headquarters in Miami.”. Miami Herald. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-8831811_ITM. Retrieved August 28, 2009. 

^ “Home Page”. Burger King. http://web.archive.org/web/19970415114954/http://www.burgerking.com/. Retrieved October 2, 2009. 

^ “Cutler CDP, Florida”. U.S. Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/MapItDrawServlet?geo_id=16000US1215962&_bucket_id=50&tree_id=420&context=saff&_lang=en&_sse=on. Retrieved October 2, 2009. 

^ “About our village”. Village of Palmetto Bay. http://www.palmettobay-fl.gov/about.htm. Retrieved October 2, 2009. 

^ a b “Bacardi U.S.A. to take over BK’s planned Coral Gables headquarters”. South Florida Business Journal. Tuesday. May 8, 2007. http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2007/05/07/daily8.html#. Retrieved October 2, 2009. 

^ Beaird, Daniel. (August 2006). “OFFICE MARKET UPDATE Vacancies drop as job growth remains steady.”. Southeast Real Estate Business. http://southeastrebusiness.com/articles/AUG06/cover2.html. Retrieved October 2, 2009. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Burger King

Official site

Burger King News

How many calories does Burger King food have?

Yahoo! Burger King Corporation Company Profile at Yahoo! Finance

Burger King Corporation Company Profile at Hoovers.com

v  d  e

Burger King

History   Advertising  Advertising Programs   Franchises   Legal issues   Products

People

Brad Blum  Greg Brenneman  Norman E. Brinker   Jeff Campbell  John W. Chidsey  Jack Cowin  David Edgerton  James McLamore  Donald N. Smith

Product

list

Beef

Angus or Steakhouse burger  Big King  BK Stacker  Rodeo Cheeseburger  Whopper  BK XXL

Chicken

BK Chicken Fries  BK Chicken Tenders  Original Chicken  TenderCrisp  TenderGrill  BK Crown Jewels line  BK Baguette line  Chick’n Crisp

Other

BK Big Fish  BK Dinner Baskets   BK Veggie  Spicy Bean Burger  Croissan’Wich  Enormous Omelet

Advertising

programs

Campaigns

Coq Roq  The Subservient Chicken  Ugoff  The Burger King  The Whopperettes  The Whoppers  Where’s Herb?  BK Tee Vee  Burger King Kingdom  Sneak King  Big Bumpin’  PocketBike Racer

Sponsorships

Burger King Stunners  Burger King Whoppers  Tony Stewart (NASCAR)

Related subjects

Burger Wars  Fast food advertising

Franchisees &

related topics

Army and Air Force Exchange Service  AmRest  Beurger King Muslim  BK Whopper Bar  Burger King (Mattoon, Illinois)  Carrols Corporation  Simonds Farsons Cisk  Heartland Foods  Hungry Jack’s  Olayan Group  Wimpy

Legal

cases

Burger King Corporation v Hungry Jack’s  Burger King v. Rudzewicz  Burger King Pokmon container recall

Nutrition

USA (regional  product ingredients  low calorie data  low carb data  eating strategy data)  Australia (Hungry Jack’s)  Brazil  Canada  New Zealand

Annual revenue  $2.05 billion USD (2006)  Employees 340,000 (2005)  Stock symbol NYSE: BKC  Website burgerking.com

v  d  e

Fast food restaurant chains in the United States

Hamburger

A&W  Arctic Circle  Big Boy  Burger King  Burgerville  Carl’s Jr.  Checkers/Rally’s  Cook Out  Culver’s  Fatburger  Five Guys  Hardee’s  In-N-Out Burger  Jack in the Box  Johnny Rockets  Krystal  Maid-Rite  McDonald’s  Nation’s Giant Hamburgers  Roy Rogers  Sonic Drive-In  Steak n Shake  Tommy’s  Wendy’s  Whataburger  White Castle  Winstead’s  Zippy’s

Pizza

Boston Pizza  CiCi’s Pizza  Domino’s  Donatos Pizza  Hungry Howie’s Pizza  Little Caesars  Mazzio’s  Papa Gino’s  Papa John’s  Peter Piper Pizza  Pizza Hut  Pizzeria Regina  Rocky Rococo  Round Table Pizza  Sal’s Pizza  Sbarro  Shakey’s Pizza

Chicken

Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits  Boston Market  Brown’s  Chick-fil-A  Chicken Express  Church’s Chicken  El Pollo Loco  Kentucky Fried Chicken  Pollo Tropical  Popeyes  Raising Cane’s  Zaxby’s

Asian-Pacific foods

Jollibee (Filipino)  L&L Hawaiian Barbecue  Lee’s Sandwiches (Vietnamese)  Manchu Wok (Chinese)  Panda Express (Chinese)  Pick Up Stix (Chinese)  Sarku Japan (Japanese)  Yoshinoya (Japanese)

Ice cream

Baskin-Robbins  Ben & Jerry’s  Braum’s  Brigham’s Ice Cream  Bruster’s  Carvel  Cold Stone Creamery  Culver’s  Dairy Queen  Dippin’ Dots  Friendly’s  Fosters Freeze  Hagen-Dazs  Marble Slab Creamery  Newport Creamery  Tastee-Freez

Frozen yogurt

Pinkberry  Red Mango  TCBY  Yogen Frz

Sandwich

Arby’s  Blimpie  Cos  D’Angelo Sandwich Shops  Firehouse Subs  Hogi Yogi  Jason’s Deli  Jersey Mike’s Subs  Jimmy John’s  Kelly’s Roast Beef  Milio’s Sandwiches  Panera Bread  Potbelly Sandwich Works  Quiznos  Rax Roast Beef  Schlotzsky’s  Subway  Tropical Smoothie Cafe  Tubby’s  Which Wich?

Seafood

Arthur Treacher’s  Captain D’s  Ivar’s  Long John Silver’s

Hot dog

James Coney Island  Hot Dog on a Stick  Nathan’s Famous  Portillo’s  Wienerschnitzel

Mexican-style food

Baja Fresh  Boloco  Cafe Rio  California Tortilla  Chipotle Mexican Grill  Del Taco  Freebirds World Burrito  Mighty Taco  Moe’s Southwest Grill  Qdoba Mexican Grill  Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill  Taco Bell  Taco Bueno  Taco Cabana  Taco John’s  Taco Mayo  Taco Tico  Taco Time

Baked goods

Au Bon Pain  Auntie Anne’s  Bruegger’s  Cinnabon  Dunkin’ Donuts  Einstein Bros. Bagels  Krispy Kreme  Mrs. Field’s Cookies  Pretzel Time  Shipley Do-Nuts  T.J. Cinnamons  Tim Hortons  Winchell’s Donuts

Beverages

Caribou Coffee  The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf  Coffee Beanery  Dunn Bros  Jamba Juice  Orange Julius  Peet’s Coffee & Tea  Planet Smoothie  Seattle’s Best Coffee  Smoothie King  Starbucks  Tully’s Coffee   Biggby Coffee

Defunct

Burger Chef  Carrols  Druther’s  Gino’s Hamburgers  Naugles  Red Barn  Sandy’s

v  d  e

Food chains in the United Kingdom

Coffeehouse:

AMT Coffee  Caff Nero  Caff Ritazza  Coffee Republic  Costa Coffee  Gloria Jean’s Coffees  Starbucks

Fast food restaurants:

Bagel Nash  Baskin-Robbins  Burger King  Chicken Cottage  Dixy Chicken  Domino’s Pizza  Favorite Chicken  KFC  Krispy Kreme  Little Chef  McDonald’s  Millie’s Cookies  Papa John’s Pizza  Pizza Hut  Sbarro   Shakeaway  Spudulike  Wimpy  Yogen Frz 

Casual dining:

Aberdeen Angus Steak Houses  Beefeater  Bella Italia  Brewers Fayre  Caf Rouge  Carluccio’s  Chiquito  Damon’s  Fine Burger Company  Frankie & Benny’s  Gourmet Burger Kitchen  Hard Rock Cafe  Harry Ramsden’s  Harvester  Hooters  Hungry Horse  Loch Fyne  Nando’s  Outback Steakhouse  PizzaExpress  Planet Hollywood  Prezzo  Rainforest Cafe  Romano’s Macaroni Grill  Strada  Taybarns  T.G.I. Friday’s  Wagamama  YO! Sushi  Zizzi

Sandwich shops:

Bakers Oven  EAT.  Greggs  O’Briens  Pret A Manger  Quiznos  Sayers   Subway  Upper Crust

Pub chains:

All Bar One  Firkin Brewery  Scream Pubs  Slug and Lettuce  Walkabout  Wetherspoons  Yates’s

Former chains:

ABC  Arby’s  A&W Restaurants  Berni Inn  Benjys  Blimpie  Chili’s  Dunkin’ Donuts  Happy Eater  Long John Silver’s  Lyons Corner Houses  Pasta Hut  Popeye’s  Quick  Schlotzsky’s  Taco Bell  Wendy’s

v  d  e

Restaurant chains in Ireland

Fast-food restaurants

Abrakebabra  Apache Pizza  Burger King  Domino’s Pizza  Four Star Pizza  KFC  McDonald’s  Supermac’s  Wimpy

Casual dining restaurants

Captain America’s  Eddie Rocket’s  Hard Rock Cafe  Harry Ramsden’s  Metzo  Pizza Hut  Spur Steakhouse  T.G.I. Friday’s

Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Burger King | Bain Capital companies | Companies based in Miami-Dade County, Florida | Companies established in 1954 | Fast food | Fast-food chains of Canada | Fast-food chains of the United States | Fast-food franchises | Fast-food hamburger restaurants | Multinational food companies | Restaurant chains in the United States | Texas Pacific Group companiesHidden categories: Wikipedia semi-protected pages

Microorganism

History

Evolution

Further information: Timeline of evolution

Single-celled microorganisms were the first forms of life to develop on Earth, approximately 34 billion years ago. Further evolution was slow, and for about 3 billion years in the Precambrian eon, all organisms were microscopic. So, for most of the history of life on Earth the only forms of life were microorganisms. Bacteria, algae and fungi have been identified in amber that is 220 million years old, which shows that the morphology of microorganisms has changed little since the triassic period.

Most microorganisms can reproduce rapidly and microbes such as bacteria can also freely exchange genes by conjugation, transformation and transduction between widely-divergent species. This horizontal gene transfer, coupled with a high mutation rate and many other means of genetic variation, allows microorganisms to swiftly evolve (via natural selection) to survive in new environments and respond to environmental stresses. This rapid evolution is important in medicine, as it has led to the recent development of ‘super-bugs’ pathogenic bacteria that are resistant to modern antibiotics.

Pre-Microbiology

The possibility that microorganisms exist was discussed for many centuries before their actual discovery in the 17th century. The earliest known idea to indicate the possibility of diseases spreading by yet unseen organisms was that of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in a 1st century BC book titled On Agriculture in which he warns against locating a homestead near swamps:

and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.

In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Ab Al ibn Sn (Avicenna) stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected. He also hypothesized that tuberculosis and other diseases might be contagious, i.e. that they were infectious diseases, and used quarantine to limit their spread.

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached Andalusia in Spain, in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima wrote that infectious diseases were caused by contagious “minute bodies” that enter the human body. Later, in 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or even without contact over long distances.

All these early claims about the existence of microorganisms were speculative and were not based on any data or science. Microorganisms were neither proven, observed, nor correctly and accurately described until the 17th century. The reason for this was that all these early studies lacked the microscope.

History of microorganisms’ discovery

See also: History of biology

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the first microbiologist and the first to observe microorganisms using a microscope.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek was the one of the first people to observe microorganisms, using a microscope of his own design, and made one of the most important contributions to biology. Robert Hooke was the first to use a microscope to observe living things; his 1665 book Micrographia contained descriptions of plant cells.

Before Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microorganisms in 1675, it had been a mystery why grapes could be turned into wine, milk into cheese, or why food would spoil. Leeuwenhoek did not make the connection between these processes and microorganisms, but using a microscope, he did establish that there were forms of life that were not visible to the naked eye. Leeuwenhoek’s discovery, along with subsequent observations by Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur, ended the long-held belief that life spontaneously appeared from non-living substances during the process of spoilage.

Lazzaro Spallanzani found that boiling broth would sterilise it and kill any microorganisms in it. He also found that new microorganisms could only settle in a broth if the broth was exposed to the air. Louis Pasteur expanded upon Spallanzani’s findings by exposing boiled broths to the air, in vessels that contained a filter to prevent all particles from passing through to the growth medium, and also in vessels with no filter at all, with air being admitted via a curved tube that would not allow dust particles to come in contact with the broth. By boiling the broth beforehand, Pasteur ensured that no microorganisms survived within the broths at the beginning of his experiment. Nothing grew in the broths in the course of Pasteur’s experiment. This meant that the living organisms that grew in such broths came from outside, as spores on dust, rather than spontaneously generated within the broth. Thus, Pasteur dealt the death blow to the theory of spontaneous generation and supported germ theory.

In 1767, Dr. J. Z. Holwell reported that Indian physicians at the time knew that microbes caused diseases: “They lay it down as a principle, that the immediate cause of the smallpox exists in the mortal part of every human and animal form; that the mediate (or second) acting cause, which stirs up the first, and throws it into a state of fermentation, is multitudes of imperceptible animalculae floating in the atmosphere; that these are the cause of all epidemical diseases, but more particularly of the small pox.”

In 1876, Robert Koch established that microbes can cause disease. He found that the blood of cattle who were infected with anthrax always had large numbers of Bacillus anthracis. Koch found that he could transmit anthrax from one animal to another by taking a small sample of blood from the infected animal and injecting it into a healthy one, and this caused the healthy animal to become sick. He also found that he could grow the bacteria in a nutrient broth, then inject it into a healthy animal, and cause illness. Based on these experiments, he devised criteria for establishing a causal link between a microbe and a disease and these are now known as Koch’s postulates. Although these postulates cannot be applied in all cases, they do retain historical importance to the development of scientific thought and are still being used today.

Classification and structure

Evolutionary tree showing the common ancestry of all three domains of life. Bacteria are colored blue, eukaryotes red, and archaea green. Relative positions of some phyla are shown around the tree.

Microorganisms can be found almost anywhere in the taxonomic organization of life on the planet. Bacteria and archaea are almost always microscopic, while a number of eukaryotes are also microscopic, including most protists, some fungi, as well as some animals and plants. Viruses are generally regarded as not living and therefore are not microbes, although the field of microbiology also encompasses the study of viruses.

Prokaryotes

Main article: Prokaryote

Prokaryotes are organisms that lack a cell nucleus and the other membrane bound organelles. They are almost always unicellular, although some species such as myxobacteria can aggregate into complex structures as part of their life cycle.

Consisting of two domains, bacteria and archaea, the prokaryotes are the most diverse and abundant group of organisms on Earth and inhabit practically all environments where some liquid water is available and the temperature is below +140 C. They are found in sea water, soil, air, animals’ gastrointestinal tracts, hot springs and even deep beneath the Earth’s crust in rocks. Practically all surfaces which have not been specially sterilized are covered by prokaryotes. The number of prokaryotes on Earth is estimated to be around five million trillion trillion, or 5 1030, accounting for at least half the biomass on Earth.

Bacteria

Main article: Bacteria

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria magnified about 10,000x

Bacteria are practically all invisible to the naked eye, with a few extremely rare exceptions, such as Thiomargarita namibiensis. They lack membrane-bound organelles, and can function and reproduce as individual cells, but often aggregate in multicellular colonies. Their genome is usually a single loop of DNA, although they can also harbor small pieces of DNA called plasmids. These plasmids can be transferred between cells through bacterial conjugation. Bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall, which provides strength and rigidity to their cells. They reproduce by binary fission or sometimes by budding, but do not undergo sexual reproduction. Some species form extraordinarily resilient spores, but for bacteria this is a mechanism for survival, not reproduction. Under optimal conditions bacteria can grow extremely rapidly and can double as quickly as every 10 minutes.

Archaea

Main article: Archaea

Archaea are also single-celled organisms that lack nuclei. In the past, the differences between bacteria and archaea were not recognised and archaea were classified with bacteria as part of the kingdom Monera. However, in 1990 the microbiologist Carl Woese proposed the three-domain system that divided living things into bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Archaea differ from bacteria in both their genetics and biochemistry. For example, while bacterial cell membranes are made from phosphoglycerides with ester bonds, archaean membranes are made of ether lipids.

Archaea were originally described in extreme environments, such as hot springs, but have since been found in all types of habitats. Only now are scientists beginning to realize how common archaea are in the environment, with crenarchaeota being the most common form of life in the ocean, dominating ecosystems below 150 m in depth. These organisms are also common in soil and play a vital role in ammonia oxidation.

Eukaryotes

Ostreococcus is the smallest known free living eukaryote with an average size of 0.8 m

Main article: Eukaryote

Most living things which are visible to the naked eye in their adult form are eukaryotes, including humans. However, a large number of eukaryotes are also microorganisms. Unlike bacteria and archaea, eukaryotes contain organelles such as the cell nucleus, the Golgi apparatus and mitochondria in their cells. The nucleus is an organelle which houses the DNA that makes up a cell’s genome. DNA itself is arranged in complex chromosomes. Mitochondria are organelles vital in metabolism as they are the site of the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation. They evolved from symbiotic bacteria and retain a remnant genome. Like bacteria, plant cells have cell walls, and contain organelles such as chloroplasts in addition to the organelles in other eukaryotes. Chloroplasts produce energy from light by photosynthesis, and were also originally symbiotic bacteria.

Unicellular eukaryotes are those eukaryotic organisms that consist of a single cell throughout their life cycle. This qualification is significant since most multicellular eukaryotes consist of a single cell called a zygote at the beginning of their life cycles. Microbial eukaryotes can be either haploid or diploid, and some organisms have multiple cell nuclei (see coenocyte). However, not all microorganisms are unicellular as some microscopic eukaryotes are made from multiple cells.

Protists

Main article: Protista

Of eukaryotic groups, the protists are most commonly unicellular and microscopic. This is a highly diverse group of organisms that are not easy to classify. Several algae species are multicellular protists, and slime molds have unique life cycles that involve switching between unicellular, colonial, and multicellular forms. The number of species of protozoa is uncertain, since we may have identified only a small proportion of the diversity in this group of organisms.

A microscopic mite Lorryia formosa.

Animals

Main article: Micro-animals

Mostly animals are multicellular, but some are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopic arthropods include dust mites and spider mites. Microscopic crustaceans include copepods and the cladocera, while many nematodes are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Another particularly common group of microscopic animals are the rotifers, which are filter feeders that are usually found in fresh water. Micro-animals reproduce both sexually and asexually and may reach new habitats as eggs that survive harsh environments that would kill the adult animal. However, some simple animals, such as rotifers and nematodes, can dry out completely and remain dormant for long periods of time.

Fungi

Main article: Fungus

The fungi have several unicellular species, such as baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe). Some fungi, such as the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans, can undergo phenotypic switching and grow as single cells in some environments, and filamentous hyphae in others. Fungi reproduce both asexually, by budding or binary fission, as well by producing spores, which are called conidia when produced asexually, or basidiospores when produced sexually.

Plants

Main article: Plant

The green algae are a large group of photosynthetic eukaryotes that include many microscopic organisms. Although some green algae are classified as protists, others such as charophyta are classified with embryophyte plants, which are the most familiar group of land plants. Algae can grow as single cells, or in long chains of cells. The green algae include unicellular and colonial flagellates, usually but not always with two flagella per cell, as well as various colonial, coccoid, and filamentous forms. In the Charales, which are the algae most closely related to higher plants, cells differentiate into several distinct tissues within the organism. There are about 6000 species of green algae.

Habitats and ecology

Microorganisms are found in almost every habitat present in nature. Even in hostile environments such as the poles, deserts, geysers, rocks, and the deep sea. Some types of microorganisms have adapted to the extreme conditions and sustained colonies; these organisms are known as extremophiles. Extremophiles have been isolated from rocks as much as 7 kilometres below the Earth’s surface, and it has been suggested that the amount of living organisms below the Earth’s surface may be comparable with the amount of life on or above the surface. Extremophiles have been known to survive for a prolonged time in a vacuum, and can be highly resistant to radiation, which may even allow them to survive in space. Many types of microorganisms have intimate symbiotic relationships with other larger organisms; some of which are mutually beneficial (mutualism), while others can be damaging to the host organism (parasitism). If microorganisms can cause disease in a host they are known as pathogens.

Extremophiles

Main article: Extremophile

Extremophiles are microorganisms which have adapted so that they can survive and even thrive in conditions that are normally fatal to most life-forms. For example, some species have been found in the following extreme environments:

Temperature: as high as 130 C (266 F), as low as 17 C (1.4 F)

Acidity/alkalinity: less than pH 0, up to pH 11.5

Salinity: up to saturation

Pressure: up to 1,000-2,000 atm, down to 0 atm (e.g. vacuum of space)

Radiation: up to 5kGy

Extremophiles are significant in different ways. They extend terrestrial life into much of the Earth’s hydrosphere, crust and atmosphere, their specific evolutionary adaptation mechanisms to their extreme environment can be exploited in bio-technology, and their very existence under such extreme conditions increases the potential for extraterrestrial life.

Soil microbes

The nitrogen cycle in soils depends on the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. One way this can occur is in the nodules in the roots of legumes that contain symbiotic bacteria of the genera Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Sinorhizobium, Bradyrhizobium, and Azorhizobium.

Symbiotic microbes

Symbiotic microbes such as fungi and algae form an association in lichen. Certain fungi form mycorhizzal symbioses with trees that increase the supply of nutrients to the tree.

Importance

Microorganisms are vital to humans and the environment, as they participate in the Earth’s element cycles such as the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle, as well as fulfilling other vital roles in virtually all ecosystems, such as recycling other organisms’ dead remains and waste products through decomposition. Microbes also have an important place in most higher-order multicellular organisms as symbionts. Many blame the failure of Biosphere 2 on an improper balance of microbes.

Use in food

Main article: Fermentation (food)

Microorganisms are used in brewing, winemaking, baking, pickling and other food-making processes.

They are also used to control the fermentation process in the production of cultured dairy products such as yogurt and cheese. The cultures also provide flavour and aroma, and inhibit undesirable organisms.

Use in water treatment

Main article: Sewage treatment

Specially-cultured microbes are used in the biological treatment of sewage and industrial waste effluent, a process known as bioaugmentation.

Use in energy

Main articles: Algae fuel, Cellulosic ethanol, and Ethanol fermentation

Microbes are used in fermentation to produce ethanol, and in biogas reactors to produce methane. Scientists are researching the use of algae to produce liquid fuels, and bacteria to convert various forms of agricultural and urban waste into usable fuels.

Use in science

Microbes are also essential tools in biotechnology, biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology. The yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) are important model organisms in science, since they are simple eukaryotes that can be grown rapidly in large numbers and are easily manipulated. They are particularly valuable in genetics, genomics and proteomics. Microbes can be harnessed for uses such as creating steroids and treating skin diseases. Scientists are also considering using microbes for living fuel cells, and as a solution for pollution.

Use in warfare

Main article: Biological warfare

In the Middle Ages, diseased corpses were thrown into castles during sieges using catapults or other siege engines. Individuals near the corpses were exposed to the deadly pathogen and were likely to spread that pathogen to others.

Importance in human health

Human digestion

Further information: Human flora#Human bacterial flora and human health

Microorganisms can form an endosymbiotic relationship with other, larger organisms. For example, the bacteria that live within the human digestive system contribute to gut immunity, synthesise vitamins such as folic acid and biotin, and ferment complex indigestible carbohydrates.

Diseases and immunology

Main article: Pathogenic microbes

Microorganisms are the cause of many infectious diseases. The organisms involved include pathogenic bacteria, causing diseases such as plague, tuberculosis and anthrax; protozoa, causing diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness and toxoplasmosis; and also fungi causing diseases such as ringworm, candidiasis or histoplasmosis. However, other diseases such as influenza, yellow fever or AIDS are caused by pathogenic viruses, which are not usually classified as living organisms and are not therefore microorganisms by the strict definition. As of 2007, no clear examples of archaean pathogens are known, although a relationship has been proposed between the presence of some methanogens and human periodontal disease.

Importance in ecology

Further information: Decomposition

Microbes are critical to the processes of decomposition required to cycle nitrogen and other elements back to the natural world.

Hygiene

Main article: Hygiene

Hygiene is the avoidance of infection or food spoiling by eliminating microorganisms from the surroundings. As microorganisms, particularly bacteria, are found practically everywhere, this means in most cases the reduction of harmful microorganisms to acceptable levels. However, in some cases it is required that an object or substance be completely sterile, i.e. devoid of all living entities and viruses. A good example of this is a hypodermic needle.

In food preparation microorganisms are reduced by preservation methods (such as the addition of vinegar), clean utensils used in preparation, short storage periods or by cool temperatures. If complete sterility is needed, the two most common methods are irradiation and the use of an autoclave, which resembles a pressure cooker.

There are several methods for investigating the level of hygiene in a sample of food, drinking water, equipment etc. Water samples can be filtrated through an extremely fine filter. This filter is then placed in a nutrient medium. Microorganisms on the filter then grow to form a visible colony. Harmful microorganisms can be detected in food by placing a sample in a nutrient broth designed to enrich the organisms in question. Various methods, such as selective media or PCR, can then be used for detection. The hygiene of hard surfaces, such as cooking pots, can be tested by touching them with a solid piece of nutrient medium and then allowing the microorganisms to grow on it.

There are no conditions where all microorganisms would grow, and therefore often several different methods are needed. For example, a food sample might be analyzed on three different nutrient mediums designed to indicate the presence of “total” bacteria (conditions where many, but not all, bacteria grow), molds (conditions where the growth of bacteria is prevented by e.g. antibiotics) and coliform bacteria (these indicate a sewage contamination).

See also

Biological warfare

Biology

Culture collection

Microbial intelligence

Nanobacterium

Petri dish

Prokaryote

Soil contamination

Staining

Virus

Bacterium

Protozoa

Fungi

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^ Some Psychrophilic bacteria can grow at 17 C (1.4 F), and can survive near absolute zero.

^ Picrophilus can grow at pH -0.06.

^ The alkaliphilic bacteria Bacillus alcalophilus can grow at up to pH 11.5.

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^ See Deinococcus radiodurans

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External links

Our Microbial Planet A free poster from the National Academy of Sciences about the positive roles of microbes.

“Uncharted Microbial World: Microbes and Their Activities in the Environment” Report from the American Academy of Microbiology

Understanding Our Microbial Planet: The New Science of Metagenomics A 20-page educational booklet providing a basic overview of metagenomics and our microbial planet.

Tree of Life Eukaryotes

Microbe News from Genome News Network

Microbes Patent List Microbes Related Patents

Medical Microbiology On-line textbook

Through the microscope: A look at all things small On-line microbiology textbook by Timothy Paustian and Gary Roberts, University of Wisconsin-Madison

MicrobeID.com Online Bacteria Identification Key and Probabilistic Identification Databases

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Categories: Microorganisms | MicrobiologyHidden categories: Articles containing Greek language text | Articles containing Ancient Greek language text

Microorganism

History

Evolution

Further information: Timeline of evolution

Single-celled microorganisms were the first forms of life to develop on Earth, approximately 34 billion years ago. Further evolution was slow, and for about 3 billion years in the Precambrian eon, all organisms were microscopic. So, for most of the history of life on Earth the only forms of life were microorganisms. Bacteria, algae and fungi have been identified in amber that is 220 million years old, which shows that the morphology of microorganisms has changed little since the triassic period.

Most microorganisms can reproduce rapidly and microbes such as bacteria can also freely exchange genes by conjugation, transformation and transduction between widely-divergent species. This horizontal gene transfer, coupled with a high mutation rate and many other means of genetic variation, allows microorganisms to swiftly evolve (via natural selection) to survive in new environments and respond to environmental stresses. This rapid evolution is important in medicine, as it has led to the recent development of ‘super-bugs’ pathogenic bacteria that are resistant to modern antibiotics.

Pre-Microbiology

The possibility that microorganisms exist was discussed for many centuries before their actual discovery in the 17th century. The earliest known idea to indicate the possibility of diseases spreading by yet unseen organisms was that of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in a 1st century BC book titled On Agriculture in which he warns against locating a homestead near swamps:

and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.

In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Ab Al ibn Sn (Avicenna) stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected. He also hypothesized that tuberculosis and other diseases might be contagious, i.e. that they were infectious diseases, and used quarantine to limit their spread.

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached Andalusia in Spain, in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima wrote that infectious diseases were caused by contagious “minute bodies” that enter the human body. Later, in 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or even without contact over long distances.

All these early claims about the existence of microorganisms were speculative and were not based on any data or science. Microorganisms were neither proven, observed, nor correctly and accurately described until the 17th century. The reason for this was that all these early studies lacked the microscope.

History of microorganisms’ discovery

See also: History of biology

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the first microbiologist and the first to observe microorganisms using a microscope.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek was the one of the first people to observe microorganisms, using a microscope of his own design, and made one of the most important contributions to biology. Robert Hooke was the first to use a microscope to observe living things; his 1665 book Micrographia contained descriptions of plant cells.

Before Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microorganisms in 1675, it had been a mystery why grapes could be turned into wine, milk into cheese, or why food would spoil. Leeuwenhoek did not make the connection between these processes and microorganisms, but using a microscope, he did establish that there were forms of life that were not visible to the naked eye. Leeuwenhoek’s discovery, along with subsequent observations by Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur, ended the long-held belief that life spontaneously appeared from non-living substances during the process of spoilage.

Lazzaro Spallanzani found that boiling broth would sterilise it and kill any microorganisms in it. He also found that new microorganisms could only settle in a broth if the broth was exposed to the air. Louis Pasteur expanded upon Spallanzani’s findings by exposing boiled broths to the air, in vessels that contained a filter to prevent all particles from passing through to the growth medium, and also in vessels with no filter at all, with air being admitted via a curved tube that would not allow dust particles to come in contact with the broth. By boiling the broth beforehand, Pasteur ensured that no microorganisms survived within the broths at the beginning of his experiment. Nothing grew in the broths in the course of Pasteur’s experiment. This meant that the living organisms that grew in such broths came from outside, as spores on dust, rather than spontaneously generated within the broth. Thus, Pasteur dealt the death blow to the theory of spontaneous generation and supported germ theory.

In 1767, Dr. J. Z. Holwell reported that Indian physicians at the time knew that microbes caused diseases: “They lay it down as a principle, that the immediate cause of the smallpox exists in the mortal part of every human and animal form; that the mediate (or second) acting cause, which stirs up the first, and throws it into a state of fermentation, is multitudes of imperceptible animalculae floating in the atmosphere; that these are the cause of all epidemical diseases, but more particularly of the small pox.”

In 1876, Robert Koch established that microbes can cause disease. He found that the blood of cattle who were infected with anthrax always had large numbers of Bacillus anthracis. Koch found that he could transmit anthrax from one animal to another by taking a small sample of blood from the infected animal and injecting it into a healthy one, and this caused the healthy animal to become sick. He also found that he could grow the bacteria in a nutrient broth, then inject it into a healthy animal, and cause illness. Based on these experiments, he devised criteria for establishing a causal link between a microbe and a disease and these are now known as Koch’s postulates. Although these postulates cannot be applied in all cases, they do retain historical importance to the development of scientific thought and are still being used today.

Classification and structure

Evolutionary tree showing the common ancestry of all three domains of life. Bacteria are colored blue, eukaryotes red, and archaea green. Relative positions of some phyla are shown around the tree.

Microorganisms can be found almost anywhere in the taxonomic organization of life on the planet. Bacteria and archaea are almost always microscopic, while a number of eukaryotes are also microscopic, including most protists, some fungi, as well as some animals and plants. Viruses are generally regarded as not living and therefore are not microbes, although the field of microbiology also encompasses the study of viruses.

Prokaryotes

Main article: Prokaryote

Prokaryotes are organisms that lack a cell nucleus and the other membrane bound organelles. They are almost always unicellular, although some species such as myxobacteria can aggregate into complex structures as part of their life cycle.

Consisting of two domains, bacteria and archaea, the prokaryotes are the most diverse and abundant group of organisms on Earth and inhabit practically all environments where some liquid water is available and the temperature is below +140 C. They are found in sea water, soil, air, animals’ gastrointestinal tracts, hot springs and even deep beneath the Earth’s crust in rocks. Practically all surfaces which have not been specially sterilized are covered by prokaryotes. The number of prokaryotes on Earth is estimated to be around five million trillion trillion, or 5 1030, accounting for at least half the biomass on Earth.

Bacteria

Main article: Bacteria

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria magnified about 10,000x

Bacteria are practically all invisible to the naked eye, with a few extremely rare exceptions, such as Thiomargarita namibiensis. They lack membrane-bound organelles, and can function and reproduce as individual cells, but often aggregate in multicellular colonies. Their genome is usually a single loop of DNA, although they can also harbor small pieces of DNA called plasmids. These plasmids can be transferred between cells through bacterial conjugation. Bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall, which provides strength and rigidity to their cells. They reproduce by binary fission or sometimes by budding, but do not undergo sexual reproduction. Some species form extraordinarily resilient spores, but for bacteria this is a mechanism for survival, not reproduction. Under optimal conditions bacteria can grow extremely rapidly and can double as quickly as every 10 minutes.

Archaea

Main article: Archaea

Archaea are also single-celled organisms that lack nuclei. In the past, the differences between bacteria and archaea were not recognised and archaea were classified with bacteria as part of the kingdom Monera. However, in 1990 the microbiologist Carl Woese proposed the three-domain system that divided living things into bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Archaea differ from bacteria in both their genetics and biochemistry. For example, while bacterial cell membranes are made from phosphoglycerides with ester bonds, archaean membranes are made of ether lipids.

Archaea were originally described in extreme environments, such as hot springs, but have since been found in all types of habitats. Only now are scientists beginning to realize how common archaea are in the environment, with crenarchaeota being the most common form of life in the ocean, dominating ecosystems below 150 m in depth. These organisms are also common in soil and play a vital role in ammonia oxidation.

Eukaryotes

Ostreococcus is the smallest known free living eukaryote with an average size of 0.8 m

Main article: Eukaryote

Most living things which are visible to the naked eye in their adult form are eukaryotes, including humans. However, a large number of eukaryotes are also microorganisms. Unlike bacteria and archaea, eukaryotes contain organelles such as the cell nucleus, the Golgi apparatus and mitochondria in their cells. The nucleus is an organelle which houses the DNA that makes up a cell’s genome. DNA itself is arranged in complex chromosomes. Mitochondria are organelles vital in metabolism as they are the site of the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation. They evolved from symbiotic bacteria and retain a remnant genome. Like bacteria, plant cells have cell walls, and contain organelles such as chloroplasts in addition to the organelles in other eukaryotes. Chloroplasts produce energy from light by photosynthesis, and were also originally symbiotic bacteria.

Unicellular eukaryotes are those eukaryotic organisms that consist of a single cell throughout their life cycle. This qualification is significant since most multicellular eukaryotes consist of a single cell called a zygote at the beginning of their life cycles. Microbial eukaryotes can be either haploid or diploid, and some organisms have multiple cell nuclei (see coenocyte). However, not all microorganisms are unicellular as some microscopic eukaryotes are made from multiple cells.

Protists

Main article: Protista

Of eukaryotic groups, the protists are most commonly unicellular and microscopic. This is a highly diverse group of organisms that are not easy to classify. Several algae species are multicellular protists, and slime molds have unique life cycles that involve switching between unicellular, colonial, and multicellular forms. The number of species of protozoa is uncertain, since we may have identified only a small proportion of the diversity in this group of organisms.

A microscopic mite Lorryia formosa.

Animals

Main article: Micro-animals

Mostly animals are multicellular, but some are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopic arthropods include dust mites and spider mites. Microscopic crustaceans include copepods and the cladocera, while many nematodes are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Another particularly common group of microscopic animals are the rotifers, which are filter feeders that are usually found in fresh water. Micro-animals reproduce both sexually and asexually and may reach new habitats as eggs that survive harsh environments that would kill the adult animal. However, some simple animals, such as rotifers and nematodes, can dry out completely and remain dormant for long periods of time.

Fungi

Main article: Fungus

The fungi have several unicellular species, such as baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe). Some fungi, such as the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans, can undergo phenotypic switching and grow as single cells in some environments, and filamentous hyphae in others. Fungi reproduce both asexually, by budding or binary fission, as well by producing spores, which are called conidia when produced asexually, or basidiospores when produced sexually.

Plants

Main article: Plant

The green algae are a large group of photosynthetic eukaryotes that include many microscopic organisms. Although some green algae are classified as protists, others such as charophyta are classified with embryophyte plants, which are the most familiar group of land plants. Algae can grow as single cells, or in long chains of cells. The green algae include unicellular and colonial flagellates, usually but not always with two flagella per cell, as well as various colonial, coccoid, and filamentous forms. In the Charales, which are the algae most closely related to higher plants, cells differentiate into several distinct tissues within the organism. There are about 6000 species of green algae.

Habitats and ecology

Microorganisms are found in almost every habitat present in nature. Even in hostile environments such as the poles, deserts, geysers, rocks, and the deep sea. Some types of microorganisms have adapted to the extreme conditions and sustained colonies; these organisms are known as extremophiles. Extremophiles have been isolated from rocks as much as 7 kilometres below the Earth’s surface, and it has been suggested that the amount of living organisms below the Earth’s surface may be comparable with the amount of life on or above the surface. Extremophiles have been known to survive for a prolonged time in a vacuum, and can be highly resistant to radiation, which may even allow them to survive in space. Many types of microorganisms have intimate symbiotic relationships with other larger organisms; some of which are mutually beneficial (mutualism), while others can be damaging to the host organism (parasitism). If microorganisms can cause disease in a host they are known as pathogens.

Extremophiles

Main article: Extremophile

Extremophiles are microorganisms which have adapted so that they can survive and even thrive in conditions that are normally fatal to most life-forms. For example, some species have been found in the following extreme environments:

Temperature: as high as 130 C (266 F), as low as 17 C (1.4 F)

Acidity/alkalinity: less than pH 0, up to pH 11.5

Salinity: up to saturation

Pressure: up to 1,000-2,000 atm, down to 0 atm (e.g. vacuum of space)

Radiation: up to 5kGy

Extremophiles are significant in different ways. They extend terrestrial life into much of the Earth’s hydrosphere, crust and atmosphere, their specific evolutionary adaptation mechanisms to their extreme environment can be exploited in bio-technology, and their very existence under such extreme conditions increases the potential for extraterrestrial life.

Soil microbes

The nitrogen cycle in soils depends on the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. One way this can occur is in the nodules in the roots of legumes that contain symbiotic bacteria of the genera Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Sinorhizobium, Bradyrhizobium, and Azorhizobium.

Symbiotic microbes

Symbiotic microbes such as fungi and algae form an association in lichen. Certain fungi form mycorhizzal symbioses with trees that increase the supply of nutrients to the tree.

Importance

Microorganisms are vital to humans and the environment, as they participate in the Earth’s element cycles such as the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle, as well as fulfilling other vital roles in virtually all ecosystems, such as recycling other organisms’ dead remains and waste products through decomposition. Microbes also have an important place in most higher-order multicellular organisms as symbionts. Many blame the failure of Biosphere 2 on an improper balance of microbes.

Use in food

Main article: Fermentation (food)

Microorganisms are used in brewing, winemaking, baking, pickling and other food-making processes.

They are also used to control the fermentation process in the production of cultured dairy products such as yogurt and cheese. The cultures also provide flavour and aroma, and inhibit undesirable organisms.

Use in water treatment

Main article: Sewage treatment

Specially-cultured microbes are used in the biological treatment of sewage and industrial waste effluent, a process known as bioaugmentation.

Use in energy

Main articles: Algae fuel, Cellulosic ethanol, and Ethanol fermentation

Microbes are used in fermentation to produce ethanol, and in biogas reactors to produce methane. Scientists are researching the use of algae to produce liquid fuels, and bacteria to convert various forms of agricultural and urban waste into usable fuels.

Use in science

Microbes are also essential tools in biotechnology, biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology. The yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) are important model organisms in science, since they are simple eukaryotes that can be grown rapidly in large numbers and are easily manipulated. They are particularly valuable in genetics, genomics and proteomics. Microbes can be harnessed for uses such as creating steroids and treating skin diseases. Scientists are also considering using microbes for living fuel cells, and as a solution for pollution.

Use in warfare

Main article: Biological warfare

In the Middle Ages, diseased corpses were thrown into castles during sieges using catapults or other siege engines. Individuals near the corpses were exposed to the deadly pathogen and were likely to spread that pathogen to others.

Importance in human health

Human digestion

Further information: Human flora#Human bacterial flora and human health

Microorganisms can form an endosymbiotic relationship with other, larger organisms. For example, the bacteria that live within the human digestive system contribute to gut immunity, synthesise vitamins such as folic acid and biotin, and ferment complex indigestible carbohydrates.

Diseases and immunology

Main article: Pathogenic microbes

Microorganisms are the cause of many infectious diseases. The organisms involved include pathogenic bacteria, causing diseases such as plague, tuberculosis and anthrax; protozoa, causing diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness and toxoplasmosis; and also fungi causing diseases such as ringworm, candidiasis or histoplasmosis. However, other diseases such as influenza, yellow fever or AIDS are caused by pathogenic viruses, which are not usually classified as living organisms and are not therefore microorganisms by the strict definition. As of 2007, no clear examples of archaean pathogens are known, although a relationship has been proposed between the presence of some methanogens and human periodontal disease.

Importance in ecology

Further information: Decomposition

Microbes are critical to the processes of decomposition required to cycle nitrogen and other elements back to the natural world.

Hygiene

Main article: Hygiene

Hygiene is the avoidance of infection or food spoiling by eliminating microorganisms from the surroundings. As microorganisms, particularly bacteria, are found practically everywhere, this means in most cases the reduction of harmful microorganisms to acceptable levels. However, in some cases it is required that an object or substance be completely sterile, i.e. devoid of all living entities and viruses. A good example of this is a hypodermic needle.

In food preparation microorganisms are reduced by preservation methods (such as the addition of vinegar), clean utensils used in preparation, short storage periods or by cool temperatures. If complete sterility is needed, the two most common methods are irradiation and the use of an autoclave, which resembles a pressure cooker.

There are several methods for investigating the level of hygiene in a sample of food, drinking water, equipment etc. Water samples can be filtrated through an extremely fine filter. This filter is then placed in a nutrient medium. Microorganisms on the filter then grow to form a visible colony. Harmful microorganisms can be detected in food by placing a sample in a nutrient broth designed to enrich the organisms in question. Various methods, such as selective media or PCR, can then be used for detection. The hygiene of hard surfaces, such as cooking pots, can be tested by touching them with a solid piece of nutrient medium and then allowing the microorganisms to grow on it.

There are no conditions where all microorganisms would grow, and therefore often several different methods are needed. For example, a food sample might be analyzed on three different nutrient mediums designed to indicate the presence of “total” bacteria (conditions where many, but not all, bacteria grow), molds (conditions where the growth of bacteria is prevented by e.g. antibiotics) and coliform bacteria (these indicate a sewage contamination).

See also

Biological warfare

Biology

Culture collection

Microbial intelligence

Nanobacterium

Petri dish

Prokaryote

Soil contamination

Staining

Virus

Bacterium

Protozoa

Fungi

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^ Eckburg P, Lepp P, Relman D (2003). “Archaea and their potential role in human disease”. Infect Immun 71 (2): 5916. doi:10.1128/IAI.71.2.591-596.2003. PMID 12540534. 

^ Lepp P, Brinig M, Ouverney C, Palm K, Armitage G, Relman D (2004). “Methanogenic Archaea and human periodontal disease”. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101 (16): 617681. doi:10.1073/pnas.0308766101. PMID 15067114. 

External links

Our Microbial Planet A free poster from the National Academy of Sciences about the positive roles of microbes.

“Uncharted Microbial World: Microbes and Their Activities in the Environment” Report from the American Academy of Microbiology

Understanding Our Microbial Planet: The New Science of Metagenomics A 20-page educational booklet providing a basic overview of metagenomics and our microbial planet.

Tree of Life Eukaryotes

Microbe News from Genome News Network

Microbes Patent List Microbes Related Patents

Medical Microbiology On-line textbook

Through the microscope: A look at all things small On-line microbiology textbook by Timothy Paustian and Gary Roberts, University of Wisconsin-Madison

MicrobeID.com Online Bacteria Identification Key and Probabilistic Identification Databases

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Like Shopping? You will Love Exeter

Do you like shopping? Then Exeter is the place for you to come with shops to suit everyone’s taste. Are you buying something for someone special or just looking for that outfit for yourself then Exeter has lots to offer. Or maybe shopping is just a hobby of yours and a must for you that lifts your mood and makes the world seem a better place then come to Exeter and find what you are looking for.

The main shopping centre of Exeter is served well by the Exeter bus services and this includes a park and ride scheme which comes into the centre from the outskirts of Exeter. There is pay and display street parking available in some areas and Exeter has many car parks offering the motorist parking within easy reach of the shopping centre of Exeter.

Exeter’s main shopping centre is extensively pedestrianized and the Princesshay area has undergone a huge revamp. This was officially opened in September 2007 and has brought more top brands into the city and some great independent retailers and transformed this area into a modern new shopping centre. It is just off Exeter’s High Street and has more than 60 shops and some great restaurants of which many provide continental pavement café service.  The revamp has preserved and made use of the Roman Wall, making a Roman Walk with shops on one side of the walkway and the wall on the other. There are superb views of Exeter’s magnificent Cathedral when walking up Princesshay to Princesshay Square. Some of the shops in and around Princesshay include – Reiss, Jack Willis, Schuh, Cult, Apple, Carol Anne, Ah Moda.

High Street – Exeter’s High Street is the main shopping area in Exeter. Here you will see how the old city is mixed with the modern and new architecture. While shopping you may see a medieval building next to a modern building. High Street is the drop off point for shoppers arriving by bus and there are regular buses using the High Street. Apart from the regular buses High Street is a pedestrian area and is home to some of the high street biggest names that are in every city such as Marks & Spencers, House of Fraser, Lakeland and Boots to name a few.

Guildhall Shopping Centre – The centre can be accessed from the High Street or from North Street, through the Harlequins Centre or Queen Street. The Guildhall Shopping Centre is an undercover shopping area with over 40 shops. You will also find here places to eat and market stalls and in the centre you will find in the courtyard the medieval church of St Pancras. There is adjoining multi-storey car parks which can be reached from Paul Street. The shops that you will find at the Guildhall include Superdrug, Mothercare, Argos and Primark.

Cathedral Yard and Cathedral Close – The magnificent St Peter’s Cathedral dominate the close and the Cathedral is one of Exeter’s most popular attractions. The Close is situated just off the high street and is in easy reach of Princesshay and other areas. It is a lovely place when the sun is out where you can sit in the sunshine watching the world go by and enjoying the lovely atmosphere of the Close. There are lots of period buildings within the Close and surrounding Yard and Martin’s Lane. Numerous shops, restaurants and bars are situated here and some of the shops situated here are Coco and Lugets as well as shops selling crafts, books and paintings.

Harlequins Shopping Centre – The shopping centre can be accessed just off Queen Street behind Habitat or from Paul Street or via the Guildhall Shopping Centre. The mall has speciality shops selling designer fashions, jewellery and gifts. There are cafés within the centre to stop for a coffee after a long day shopping or go to one of the hairdressers within the centre to make you feel good after a day’s shopping

Gandy Street – Acquired its name from Henry Gandy, a former mayor of Exeter in 1661. The street itself dates from the Saxon and has managed to conserve its medieval form. It is full of independent retailers and popular by day and night with its pretty charm. The shops here include fashion, music, food, jewellery and lots more with refreshments available both in the day and night.

Fore Street – Situated in the old West Quarter of Exeter on a hill coming up from Exe Bridges Fore Street is the main route into Exeter city centre from the west of the river Exe. Fore Street area has many independent speciality and alternative shops with plenty of refreshment establishments to choose from.

Paris Street – Exeter’s bus station is situated in Paris Street for easy access into Exeter and the shops. Along Paris Street there are shops and businesses as well as being the location of Exeter’s Civic Centre and the entrance to the Underground Passages. Shops on Paris Street include Estate Agents, Shopmobility and Sofa Workshop.

Sidwell Street – Is linked to the top end of High Street with limited street parking but has plenty of nearby parking in the Bampfylde Street car park and the King William Street car park. Daily market stalls can be seen on the wide pavements and throughout the year various visiting markets come to Sidwell Street with their speciality food and gifts. Other shops in Sidwell Street include Halfords, Long Tall Sally and Poundland.

South Street – Hosts the Exeter Farmers Market every Thursday where you can sample and buy local produce. South Street has always been a main route into the city of Exeter from the South and was previously known as Southgate Street. It lies adjacent to Exeter Cathedral and has a variety of shops and places to eat. Some of the retailers on South Street include numerous hair stylists, estate agents and galleries as well as Warrens bakery and a KFC.

Queen Street – Is a main route to the centre of Exeter and if you are travelling to Exeter by rail is one of the first shopping areas you may visit. The street can get fairly busy at times due to the commuters and Exeter College which is situated quite close to Queen Street. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum is located on Queens Street and the Guildhall and Harlequins shopping centres can also be found off this very busy street. Queen Street has an assortment of cafes and bars situated along its street as well as an assortment of shops that include bakers, flower, and music shops.

Marsh Barton – Is located on the southern outskirts of the city and is Exeter’s largest trading estate. It has easy road access from all major routes and the park and ride is also operated from Marsh Barton. The trading estate includes one of the largest motoring centres in the country with independent garages and a large collection of main vehicle dealerships. So if you want to get yourself a new vehicle then this is the place to go. Other businesses on the estate include stationers, tool hire, wholesalers, builders merchants and the Exeter Livestock Market which is held within the Matford Centre. The Stone Lane Retail Park can also be found here and it has several of the large multiple stores including Argos, Comet and Currys. A McDonalds drive-through is also within the retail park.

There are many other retailers and shops around the beautiful city of Exeter and some of the other places that you could shop are the Exe Bridge Retail Park, Rydon Lane Retail Park and Sowden Industrial Estate. Here you will find more of the large multiple stores such as Carpet Right, PC World, Homebase, B & Q to name a few.

So for a memorable shopping experience come to Exeter and in the beautiful city centre experience a shopaholic’s dream. If walking around the shops is not your dream then have a look at Activ Exeter’s Online Shopping and find what you are looking for from the comfort of your own home.

Activ Exeter July 2010

A Happy Balance between Work and Life

In today’s fast-paced society, people have started realizing that they need to strike a balance between their work-life and personal life. In an effort to earn more money to reach the ultimate goal of having a quality life, the balance is lost somewhere along the way. A worldwide online survey conducted by Fast Company-Roper Starch of 1096 college-educated, employed adults in the American society throws up interesting and fascinating details about what people think on how much money is enough. Or is this enoughness of money a mobile target, a mirage or a fruitless pursuit?

Webpreneurs becoming instant millionaires at the click of a button, start-ups converted into priceless R&D labs and workplace wizards putting themselves for auction to the highest bidder in the raging war for talent all these are not the hot button in the world of work today. It’s not even the spiraling rewards that seem to flow to those who are brazen enough to declare themselves brands, to assert their economic independence from the traditional workplace and in the process, to free themselves from the constraints of salary, bureaucracy, and corporate gravity.

The hot button today is a question that looms large in corporate boardrooms, at cocktail parties and at the family dining table. How much is enough? How much money to compensate for work? How much time to devote to family? How much public adulation to satisfy the ego? How much opportunity for private reflection to deepen the understanding? How do you define satisfaction? These questions are hot though hardly new.

A worldwide online survey was conducted by Fast Company-Roper Starch of 1096 college-educated, employed adults in the American society. The findings of the survey are perhaps true of Indian society, in general, the urban, tech-savvy and career-obsessed youth who are out to grab anything as long as it smells money in particular. Answers given by respondents of the survey to a series of probing questions, offer good insight into the complex and sometimes contradictory impulses that go into people’s choices about the intersection of work style and lifestyle. The survey also captures responses of people from a health resort, where Dan Baker’s Life Enhancement Center caters to hyper-achieving, hyper-stressed-out business people fast trackers that need a time-out to reconnect with what really matters in life. Taken as a whole, the survey results indicate another kind of balance dynamic tension between hope and futility. We are, after all, a race of strivers: We’re always running harder and we’re often willing to sacrifice resources in the present in order to pursue greatness in the future.

For many of us this precarious blend of wanting and having, of getting and spending, and calling it “balance” is acceptable and we are prepared to embrace with open arms. We believe that at some point, having “more” of something more money, more self-knowledge will change the game in a way that yields a new style of work, a new way of life, and a new sense of personal freedom. If such point is realized then, at last, we will have it all. Apparently what is not relevant to us whether such reality will eventually emerge or not. For the moment, it’s a dream and that seems to be enough.

The author is an expert in custom dissertation writing in the field of human resource management. He has been with the company for some years as a senior writer.

Make Dreams Come True, Become A Wedding Consultant

Extravagant weddings are not just for celebrities anymore. Weddings are a million dollar business that is continually growing. With both sets of parents, as well as the bride and groom themselves taking part in the bill, dream weddings are becoming a reality for most couples. As these weddings become more popular and daily lives become increasingly hectic, wedding consultants are nearly a must have. Due to this, it is the perfect time to begin a home-based wedding consultant business. Below are some details of what your future profits could look like and what knowledge is needed to begin.

Future Profit

When it comes to the cost of weddings we are talking thousands of dollars for well-planned, detailed events. A novice-wedding consultant or wedding planner who coordinates up to 10 weddings in a single year can make $17,500 up to $26,250. This is charging the standard price of 10 to 15% per event. A more experienced consultant planning 40 weddings per year can make $70,000 or more.

Knowledge and Education

To run a professional wedding consultation service it is best to become certified through the Association of Bridal Consultants (ABC). There is a training course and an annual fee, but the training includes: how to choose locations, caterers, florists, music, cake and more. How to run your business and incorporate client budgets properly.

Attitude

Training and certification are important but your attitude can make or break your career choice. This job requires a definite people person attitude. You will be dealing with teary brides, Godzilla like mothers and cantankerous suppliers. You have to be able to think on your feet and have great problem solving skills for the inevitable last minute malfunctions. Being upbeat, positive and keeping a sense of humor is a winning combination in this job demands.

Community Connections

If you know the local baker or florist you are part of the way to planning a wedding right off bat. When you have a connection with wedding oriented personnel it makes your job that much easier. You can find possible discounts without skimping on quality due to your relationship with caterers and florists.

If you are well organized, detail oriented and a great planner, becoming a wedding consultant just may be the career you have been waiting for. There are online college courses, how to books and local college courses that can assist you in preparations for the job of your dreams. You can create a fairy tale wedding for a couple and create the memory of a lifetime, along with caring for you and your family. Do some research online or at your local library and you will be well on your way to fulfilling your dreams and those of millions of others as well.