There are two different global food brands which epitomize the difference between top-down brand-driven franchising, and the bottom-up “open source” ideas we all know and love.

In almost any city anywhere in the world you can find both of these options. There will be McDonald’s which is part of the corporate entity headquartered in America, which pays that corporate entity for advertising, branding, research, for support, for all kinds of services, and which derives it legitimacy and promise of food consistency and safety from their oversight.

But there will also be Chinese food. It will vary a little from place to place as the cuisine adapts to local taste and ingredients. It will come in both cheap and expensive forms. It will be delivered, carried out, eaten in and all combinations thereof. It will be under a hundred thousand brands, operated by families, businesses, networks and individuals. There will be a few chains, and a lot of corner operations.

Both are global brands: shall we get “Chinese or McDonald’s?” is a perfectly reasonable thought. You walk into any chinese and in almost all cases the core menu will be the same: beef and cashew nuts, sweet and sour chicken, various noodles. Rice, white or egg fried. On top of this core, variety builds.

Anybody talking about global growth and global branding needs to look at the Chinese restaurant and the example it offers of how to get big – really, really big – one independent store, converged by instinct with all others to be a credible global brand.

Addenda: Pizza is an interesting case where there are lots of local one-store vendors, and lots of chains. Discuss!