March 6, 2015 
Source: Wendy Tietz
McDonald’s recently released a video featuring Grant Imahara, a former host from “Mythbusters,” about how its French fries are made. Some people have said that its French fries are mashed-up potatoes (or other ingredients) pressed into French fry shapes. To see how the French fries are actually made, see the video at http://time.com/3675518/how-mcdonalds-makes-french-fries/ (5:06 minutes.)
Questions
- What is the distinction between product costs and period costs?
- Why is it important to sort costs into product costs and period costs?
- What are some product costs related to McDonald’s French fries?
- What are some period costs related to the manufacture and sale of McDonald’s French fries?
Instructor Resources
These resources are provided to give the instructor flexibility for use of Accounting in the Headlines articles in the classroom. The blog posting itself can be assigned via a link to this site OR by distributing the student handout below. Alternatively, the PowerPoint file below contains a bullet point overview of the article and the discussion questions.
- Student handout (pdf) (word) (contains entire blog posting + discussion questions)
- PowerPoint file (brief article overview + discussion questions)
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Accounting in the Headlines 
Hi Wendy,
The reference to the McDonalds video says that the video is private and that you need an authorized sign-in to view? Is there a sign-in we can use?
Thanks
Teresa
Hi Teresa. That link changed to private since I originally used it. I was able to find another link and have updated the post. Thanks for the heads up! Wendy