This is the basis of my new (as yet unpublished) defence, which is called the Malthusian Rebuff. Which makes me sound like a chess player, but it’s all to do with our business and runs as follows.

Thomas Malthus was one of those Brits who joined in the fun of authoring theories of the universe in the late eighteenth century. His basic premise was that the earth’s population was going to grow at a far, far faster rate than mankind’s ability to feed itself. It was therefore doomed, unless it “intervened” on its own behalf and rid itself of millions of its citizens by disease, war, famine (etc., etc.), thus avoiding the need to feed them. Malthus sounds as though he would have been great company at a dinner party.

It was a popular theory for a long time, but eventually proven wrong. Mankind did manage to feed itself. Where extensive starvation has occurred, history has shown that the real problems were about the failure to get surpluses from one part of the globe to another. The stuff was there. We, as a race, just didn’t make it happen.

So what changed? How did he get his mathematics so wrong? What he didn’t foresee were the giant strides that would be made in science and technology, which affected every single aspect of production and logistics in the food industry, and this is where (take a bow) the quick-service industry plays a huge part. It is one thing producing huge amounts of raw food, but another thing to process it into its edible form. You can’t eat raw potatoes. If you could, the Irish would have perfected it centuries ago. No, they need to be processed before they are set before us in boiled, roast, or fried form. Crops need to be baked, rice needs to be boiled. I am quite clear in my mind: If it wasn’t for the job done by the quick-service industry every day, the Malthusian prophesy would have had a fighting chance of coming to pass. It is the burger joint, the deli, the noodle stall, the sushi bar, the diner, the fish and chip shop, the hot sausage kiosk, the pizza shop, the coffee house, the doughnut counter, the dim-sum trolley, the toastie hut—and their countless (but equally maligned) brother and sister concepts—that stand between a billion and more of this planet’s population going to bed hungry at night.

If Thomas Malthus was alive today I have a sneaking suspicion he would be overweight. He would simply not believe the amount of food offerings surrounding him, and would have to test them all out. Purely for research purposes you understand.

But he would have raised a glass to you all in the quick-service business. He would see you as saviours of the human race.

Now you’re blushing. I can see from here.