LATER DEVELOPMENTS. CEO Jack Greenberg, now 60, stepped down at the end of 2002. well ahead of his planned 2005 retirement. His had been a frustrating four-year effort to reinvent the firm and start it on a new growth pattern Greenberg's reinvention efforts included starting a fierce price war by selling two of McDonald's biggest sandwiches for $1 each, introducing some 40 menu items, and spending $151 million to overhaul the company's US. kitchens in order to make food hotter and fresher, as well as acquiring other restaurant chains. In November 2002, customers were even given the option of paying with credit cards and earning frequent flyer miles. Still, sales had remained lackluster, and profits fell in seven of the past eight quarters, while the stock price had sunk to a seven-year low Aside from the acquisitions, customer response to most of these efforts was poor. The price war mostly resulted in all burger chains facing lower profits with little increase in sales. The new"Made for You" kitchens sacrificed speed and service; and Greenberg could never bring customer service up to historic levels, despite sending mystery shoppers to evaluate service. The mad-cow scare in Europe in 2000 dragged down profits as well, but profitability was not regained with the end of mad-cow concerns.The foreign markets that had long sustained the growth were also faltering now, Germany was the largest European market, but McDonald's growth there stagnated as competition grew from Burger King, which expanded in Germany from 268 stores in 2000 to 390 in 2002, and from local retailers such as gas-station food marts and traditional mom-and-pop bakeries. In the UK, McDonald's problems with service and cleanliness, as well as changes in consumer tastes, now throttled its expansion efforts. In Japan, long the crown jewel in McDonald's foreign operations, the chain's 3,800 stores faced a saturated market, with its core customers families with children shrinking with a declining birthrate, while local competitors became stronger. Same-store sales in Japan fell 12.1 percent in 2002 and were expected to decline an additional 3.5 percent in 2003 Domestically, even the restaurant chains that Greenberg acquired in his diversification efforts were not producing the expected profits. Boston Market and its partner brands as a group lost $67 million on sales of $1.07 billion in 2002. Some of these could face divestiture by a top management less growth minded. As noted earlier, Boston Market was sold in 2007.