By Lisa Baertlein

OAK BROOK, Ill. (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp(MCD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) investors soundly rejected a shareholder proposal that would have required the world’s biggest fast-food chain to assess its impact on childhood obesity.

The subject was a major topic of discussion at Thursday’s annual shareholder meeting, which also served as a send-off for retiring Chief Executive Jim Skinner – whose nearly eight years at the helm will be remembered as a time when the price of McDonald’s stock tripled.

The shareholder proposal, which also failed last year, returned amid growing concern over the social and financial costs of obesity in the United States and around the world – not only in terms of healthcare-related expenses but also lower worker productivity and diminished quality of life.

Nearly one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese. America is one of the fattest nations on earth, and the Institute of Medicine, in a 2006 report requested by Congress, said junk food marketing contributes to an epidemic of childhood obesity that continues to rise. The institute is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

McDonald’s executives on Thursday defended the brand and its advertising.

“We’re proud of the changes we’ve made to our menu. We’ve done more than anybody in the industry around fruits and vegetables and variety and choice,” said Skinner, who will retire on June 30 and who received a standing ovation from investors.

May 18 (Reuters) – Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of an expanding investigation into its alleged hiring of undocumented workers.

The Denver-based company fired about 500 employees more than a year ago following audits by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm.

Chipotle said on Friday that it received the subpoena May 17 and that it intends to fully cooperate with the SEC’s investigation.

Homeland Security and the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., already are conducting probes into the company’s compliance with immigration laws.

The SEC subpoena requested “information regarding our compliance with employee work authorization requirements, our related public statements and other disclosures, and related information,” Chipotle said in a filing.

Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney and a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the case, said it is “not common at all” for the SEC to get involved in immigration matters.

“It’s often a ping-pong between the Justice Department and immigration authorities” with the Department of Labor at times stepping in, said Wildes.

May 10 (Reuters) – Dunkin’ Donuts is back in California after a decade-long absence, with a new cafe at a U.S. Marine base near San Diego, but the general public will have to wait.

The reception has been warm at Camp Pendleton, one of 26 military bases in the Dunkin’ Brands Inc unit’s network as it targets such outposts, which have relatively few dining options.

“I tried to go on opening day but the line was too long,” Staff Sgt. Luis Agostini, a New Yorker who counts Dunkin’ Donuts among his favorite coffee chains, told Reuters on Thursday.

He hasn’t yet visited the shop since it opened last week, but said he was waiting on a colleague who had been dispatched to pick up coffee and doughnuts.

Access to the cafe is limited to individuals who are allowed on base – including active and retired military members and their families, civilian personnel and approved visitors.

Some 100,000 people are on base during peak hours, a Marine spokesman said.

Other companies already operating on the grounds of Camp Pendleton include Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, McDonald’s Corp , Subway, Domino’s Pizza Inc and Yum Brands Inc’s Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains.

May 8 (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp reported a smaller-than-expected rise in April sales at established restaurants across the globe due largely to disappointing results in the United States, where diners continue to pinch pennies.

Sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months rose 3.3 percent, while analysts expected a gain of roughly 5 percent.

Global same-restaurant sales were also up 3.3 percent, missing the company’s own forecast for a 4 percent increase.

McDonald’s issued that forecast on April 20, suggesting momentum flagged late in the quarter, analysts said.

The world’s biggest hamburger chain a year ago got a big boost from shakes and other cold McCafe drinks. This April it emphasized new “Extra Value Menu” items and combo meals with prices above the offerings on its famed “Dollar Menu.”

The new menu includes 20-piece chicken McNuggets, double cheeseburgers, chicken snack wraps, Angus snack wraps, medium iced coffees and snack-sized McFlurries, plus up to four regional options that were previously listed elsewhere on its menu.

“First and foremost, the consumer continues to want value,” Lazard Capital Markets analyst Matthew DiFrisco said.

May 8 (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp reported a smaller-than-expected rise in April sales at established restaurants across the globe due largely to disappointing results in the United States, where diners continue to pinch pennies.

Sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months rose 3.3 percent, while analysts expected a gain of roughly 5 percent.

Global same-restaurant sales were also up 3.3 percent, missing the company’s own forecast for a 4 percent increase.

McDonald’s issued that forecast on April 20, suggesting momentum flagged late in the quarter, analysts said.

The world’s biggest hamburger chain a year ago got a big boost from shakes and other cold McCafe drinks. This April it emphasized new “Extra Value Menu” items and combo meals with prices above the offerings on its famed “Dollar Menu.”

The new menu includes 20-piece chicken McNuggets, double cheeseburgers, chicken snack wraps, Angus snack wraps, medium iced coffees and snack-sized McFlurries, plus up to four regional options that were previously listed elsewhere on its menu.

“First and foremost, the consumer continues to want value,” Lazard Capital Markets analyst Matthew DiFrisco said.

By Lisa Baertlein and Mihir Dalal

(Reuters) – P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc (PFCB.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which has been fighting to recover from ill-timed price increases, said it would go private in a $1.1 billion deal with Centerbridge Partners, and its shares rose 29 percent in early trading.

Centerbridge, the private equity firm that already owns restaurant-holding company CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries, will pay $51.50 per share, a premium of about 30 percent to P.F. Chang’s stock’s close on Monday.

P.F. Chang’s shares roared up 29.4 percent to $51.36 on the Nasdaq. The stock, which had fallen about 20 percent over the year to Monday, last traded above $50 in February 2011.

“It looks like a fair price,” said Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy.

He said the deal comes in at about 8 times trailing earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), right where most deals in the last year have landed including Golden Gate Capital’s acquisition of California Pizza Kitchen in July 2011.

In a week brimming with consumer sector news, Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it would invest $605 million over five years in Barnes & Noble Inc’s (BKS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Nook e-reader and college business, and footwear retailer Collective Brands Inc (PSS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) signed a deal to be bought by shoemaker Wolverine Worldwide Inc (WWW.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and two private equity firms for about $1.32 billion.

By Lisa Baertlein

(Reuters) – Starbucks Corp reported better-than-expected quarterly profit but global sales at established coffee shops fell short of analysts’ estimates due to weakness in Europe, sending its shares down five percent in after-hours trade on Thursday.

Sales from cafes open at least 13 months fell 1 percent in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region during the latest quarter. Analysts polled by Consensus Metrix had expected a 2.2 percent rise in EMEA same-store sales.

Executives attributed the drop to weakness in Europe, which suffered its first decline in same-store sales since 2009.

Sales fell in Ireland and Germany during the fiscal second quarter and were up just slightly in France and the United Kingdom, Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead said.

Europe has been a weak spot for the world’s biggest coffee chain. The region is grappling with debt woes and austerity measures and, earlier this week, Britain said its economy had fallen into its second recession since the financial crisis.

“The situation is very, very tough,” Chief Executive Howard Schultz said of Europe’s economy.

April 26 (Reuters) – Supermarket operator Safeway Inc said high gasoline prices dented profits and squeezed grocery sales in the first quarter, sending its shares down nearly 3 percent on Thursday.

Gasoline sales have low margins and can be a drag on earnings. In many areas outside large cities, supermarket companies sell gas and consumers may spend less on groceries when prices rise at the pump.

During Safeway’s latest quarter, gross profit dropped 70 basis points to 26.8 percent of sales. Excluding the 62 basis-point impact from fuel sales, gross profit declined 8 basis points.

“Strong cost controls helped us meet earnings expectations despite a shift in the New Year’s holiday, weather patterns and high gasoline prices, which dampened sales,” Steve Burd, Safeway’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

Major supermarket chains are struggling with falling sales volumes as all but the top-earning shoppers remain cautious about spending. Unemployment remains elevated and about 11 million Americans owe more on their homes than the properties are worth.

“Our preliminary assessment is that operationally, (Safeway) is continuing to lose share and may have take taken another step back in volumes based on sequential trends,” Cantor Fitzgerald & Co analyst Ajay Jain said in a client note.

The operator of the Safeway, Vons and Dominick’s chains said first-quarter income from continuing operations was $81.6 million, or 30 cents per share, compared with $25.1 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier, when Safeway booked a large charge related to repatriating $1.1 billion from Safeway’s wholly owned Canadian subsidiary.

April 25 (Reuters) – Burger King, the third-biggest U.S. hamburger chain, has pledged to end the use of the cramped chicken and pig cages targeted by animal welfare activists.

On Wednesday, the Miami-based chain committed to serving 100 percent cage-free eggs in its U.S. restaurants by 2017 and to buy pork only from suppliers with documented plans to end their use of gestation crates for breeding sows.

The announcement comes at a time when U.S. consumers are showing greater interest in agricultural practices after years of remaining largely in the dark about how their food is produced.

At the same time, groups like the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been pulling back the curtain on farm processes and pressuring restaurants and grocery stores to offer food that is produced more humanely.

The Human Society welcomed the announcement from Burger King, which has 7,200 restaurants in the United States, about half as many as fast-food industry leader McDonald’s Corp .

McDonald’s, the top U.S. hamburger chain by sales, vowed in February to work with its U.S. pork suppliers to phase out the use of gestation crates. Domestic pork producers confine millions of sows in cramped stalls while they raise piglets.

Wendy’s Co, which recently edged out Burger King to become the No. 2 hamburger chain in the United States, made a similar announcement in March.

By Lisa Baertlein

(Reuters) – Mad cow disease, scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a fatal neurological disease in cattle caused by an abnormal form of a prion protein that destroys the brain and spinal cord.

The disease was first identified in Great Britain in 1986, although research suggests that the first infections may have spontaneously occurred in the 1970s.

The disease is believed to be spread by feeding calves meat and bone meal contaminated with BSE or scrapie, a prion disease in sheep. Illnesses similar to BSE also have been seen in elk, deer and exotic zoo animals.

There were 36,000 diagnosed cases of mad cow disease in Great Britain in 1992, during that height of a mad cow epidemic there. Twenty-nine cases were diagnosed worldwide in 2011, according to the American Meat Institute.

Humans do not get mad cow disease but there is strong epidemiologic and laboratory data linking a rare, fatal, degenerative human brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) to eating BSE-contaminated products. Tissues most likely to carry the infection include the brain and spinal cords of sick animals.

Uncontaminated muscle meat, such as steaks, as well as ground beef and other products are considered safe.