Questions answered
There are 17 questions about “Suppliers” in the “How do you operate?” topic.
Click on a question to read our answer.
- 1. Hey. Just wondering where you source your dressings from? Specifically could you focus on the lettuce, all three of shredded, batavia and square cut. What quality controls are there on dressings and what percentage is sourced from in the UK?
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Thank you for your question. McDonald's policy is to source ingredients locally wherever possible, and in 2010 over 55 per cent of our food came from Britain and Ireland, from more than 17,500 British and Irish farmers.
In 2010, over 50% of our iceberg lettuce, and over 40 % of our Batavia lettuce was UK grown. During the winter when lettuce is not grown in the UK we source predominantly from Spain. However, there is also a small percentage from other countries such as Holland and France. (February 2011)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 2. hi i just visited a mcdonalds restaurant earlier on today and i was just wondering it you could tell me who supplies your food and how i can contact them.
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This could be a very long list! McDonald's works with a variety of suppliers that all share the company's aim to provide customers with great tasting, affordable food. Over the years, many strong partnerships have been forged with household brand names such as those with Coca Cola, Tropicana and Buxton. Behind the scenes, there are also a number of trusted partners who are key to the success of the supply chain such as the makers of the beef patties, Esca. Also of note are Sun Valley and Moy Park who supply McDonald’s with chicken. You can read more about some of these partners and take a look at the role they play, by clicking on the 'Quality Scout' reports link on this site. Your best bet for contacting these organisations is directly through their own websites.
(March 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 3. How are your products distributed? Please e-mail me back as soon as possible before next week!
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Thank you for your interest in McDonald’s. We place our customers at the heart of everything we do, and as part of this commitment we operate our business in an open, transparent way, providing detailed information about our business practices, agriculture and supply chain standards, as well as food and nutritional information. As a responsible business, however, we need to balance our strong desire to be as open and transparent as possible with our responsibility to run our business effectively. We do not believe that answering detailed specific requests for information from individual students is the best use of our education department’s resources, and instead we focus our efforts on providing relevant case study information which will enrich many students’ learning. Unfortunately, this does mean that we are not able to provide the information you requested. We suggest you download one of McDonald’s Student Information Packs. These have been developed after receiving many questions from students wanting to know more about the company and are designed to help address the type of questions that you may ask about the company operations. To visit our 'Schools & Students' page cut and paste the link below into your browser. http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/about-us/schools-and-students/schools-and-students.shtml
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 4. Is it true that McDonalds are the UK's biggest retailer of freshly prepared fruit?
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Thank you for your question. Unfortunately we are not able to say whether McDonald’s is the biggest retailer of freshly prepared fruit in the UK however last year McDonald’s sold 4.6 million fruit bags in the UK.
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 5. Is it true that McDonald is going to buy there beef for South America? Is it true that they said that the USA did not have enough beef for them?
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No, this is not true. McDonald's has a policy to source its ingredients locally wherever it can. McDonald's UK only uses beef sourced from around 16,000 British and Irish farms. McDonald's UK has never sourced beef from the USA.
(Feb 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 6. I picked up your literature entitled 'That's what makes McDonald's' yesterday and was interested in a figure you quote. On the 'Our chicken' page you state that 78 of the farms that supply your chicken are in the UK. Can you tell me please the total amount of farms you are supplied by to put this into context. Additionally can you advise where globally they are sourced from? I look forward to hearing your response.
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A large proportion of McDonald's chicken products are produced in the UK. The chicken meat used (which is only breast meat) is sourced from the UK, Europe, Brazil and Thailand. The nationally recognised Farm Assurance Scheme – Assured Chicken Production (ACP), accredits all chicken farmers who supply McDonald’s chicken. They rear the chickens in barns, which are monitored to the standards set by the ACP.
(Feb 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 7. Are your happy meal toys and crew uniforms mass-produced in sweat shops by underpaid, overworked workers? Many consumer products are made this way, and I find it rather sad.
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Thank you for your question. This is not true, McDonalds does not produce Happy Meal toys or staff uniforms in sweat shops. McDonald's works in partnership with two toy agencies that manage the development and manufacture of the Happy Meal premiums. Happy Meal Toys are manufactured in the Far East and in Europe by a select group of manufacturers where strict quality control policies and working practices are in place to ensure that they comply with McDonald's terms of business and local government laws. Independent audit inspections are made of all suppliers' premises and a robust code of conduct is applied to ensure workers' conditions are of the highest order.
With regards to the uniforms all McDonald’s uniform suppliers are checked for their working conditions, as well as being audited regularly for staff welfare.
(March 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 8. How many chicken nuggets are produced from one average sized chicken? How mnany 10:1 patties are produced from one average sized cow?
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Thank you for your question. The breast meat from an averaged sized chicken would make around 50 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. Regarding the beef patties, McDonalds only uses forequarter and flank cuts. This would be the equivalent to nearly 2000 beef patties from the average sized cow.
(February 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 9. why when i worked at mcdonalds did the stamp on the beef pattie boxes say it was from argentina or brazil, not england as you say on here
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Thank you for your question. All the beef that McDonald's UK uses is sourced from 16,000 farmers located in Britain and Ireland. It is a legal requirement that the country of origin of beef be displayed on delivery packaging. McDonald's can assure you that the beef patties used in the UK are produced from beef produced in Britain and Ireland. There are a number of contingency reasons where products are processed outside of the UK; our packaging is designed to provide this information. This is because McDonald’s suppliers often supply more than one McDonald's market. For this reason they are required to have information in a number of contexts.
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 10. Would you consider a free range chicken option on your menus? I am sure more people than just me woud be willing to pay more and appreciate the step forward!
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Thank you for your question. McDonald's understands your feelings regarding free range chickens. It is a very sensitive issue that has been expressed by many customers and members of the general public. As you can imagine, there are different variables involved that have to be researched and considered before any action can proceed. McDonald's has faced criticisms over the issue, but the company has not always had the opportunity to explain in a little more detail the pricing variables. There are huge differences in the costs of producing free-range chickens, compared with more common farming systems for mass production. McDonald's UK has seriously looked at all the current available options, and currently there aren’t enough farms to supply the birds, and there just isn't enough land in the UK for all the houses and fields required. McDonald's, like other responsible food businesses, is concentrating on working with producers and welfare experts to provide good welfare conditions for the birds that allow them to display their natural behaviour in comfortable surroundings, and as technology improves, so will methods.
(February 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 11. How old are the chickens before they are used to make chicken nuggets
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Thank you for your question. The only chicken meat used in McDonald's Chicken McNuggets is breast meat. The McNugget are formed using minced chicken breast (in the same way that you might mince 100 percent cuts of beef to make burgers at home). All the birds used for meat are reared under conditions that meet high standards, monitored by the Assured Chicken Production regulations. All suppliers that work with McDonald's must adhere to these standards and procedures as well as McDonald's own strict protocols.
(July 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 12. How do the produced buns get from the bakery in Heywood, Lancashire to the distributor "Keystone"? Does the bakery use its own trucks? Or, are this the trucks of Keystone? How often do they get there? Could you answer the same question for the cheese slices producer? Thanks a lot!
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The bakery does not have its own transport fleet and ideally the best place to locate a bakery is right next door to a distribution centre. At Heywood this is the case and the buns as they are made and cooled are then wheeled in their trays through to the distribution centre next door. For the other distribution centres at Hemel Hempstead and Basingstoke, Keystone send their empty trucks to the bakery and backhaul the buns. Due to the majority of buns used being fresh, the stock in the distribution centres is replenished every day.
The cheese slice supplier is located in Northern Ireland and Keystone do not operate in that market so the supplier uses contract transport to ship the consignments across to the distribution centres in the main land UK. Deliveries are made according to the orders and shelf life of the product against what stock is required.
(September 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 13. Thank you for your generous support to the UK beef and pig industries. May I ask how the extra 5% paid for these products is audited to confirm it has been passed on to your supplying farmers. Would you know what the %age on the products you buy, actually relates back to on the whole carcase of the pig or beast? i.e., would it be say, £5 per beast, £1 per pig?
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Thank you for your question. McDonald’s UK instructed its suppliers of beef and pork products to look back up the supply chain through the meat plants to identify which farmers their meat came from. Using this information the meat plant then applied the supplementary price to the meat that was used from the animals for McDonald’s UK. For example, in the case of pigs, McDonald’s uses the belly and shoulder for its sausage patty and backs for bacon, so the additional money was applied to these cuts. The meat plants then provided a list of the farmers and the amounts of money that they were paid and this information was then given to the patty and bacon suppliers who in turn gave this to McDonald’s. To verify this information and ensure the relevant farmers had been paid correctly, the patty and bacon suppliers carried out traceability checks when they inspected the meat plants. The percentage of the products relating back to the carcase very much depends on the cuts being used. In the case of beef it is the forequarter and flank (from hind quarter) and for pigs it is the shoulder, belly and back (for bacon). So, because the cuts are not a fixed proportion of the animal it would be hard to specify a particular value per carcase.
(September 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 14. How can you become a supplier to Mcdonalds?
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Thank you for your question. The majority of suppliers to McDonald’s UK have been providing products to the company for many years and have built up longstanding relationships as well as investing in required facilities. To become a new supplier there would need to be a requirement for those goods by McDonald’s UK. The perspective company would then have to demonstrate that they could meet McDonald’s quality requirements and specifications relating to the production of food. For example, as a minimum the production facility would already have to be accredited to a recognised food production standard and meet hygiene and HACCP requirements. The perspective supplier would additionally need to be audited and approved and only then would the specifications and pricing be considered.
(October 2009)
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What are these? Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon - 15. who are your suppliers of chicked mcnuggets in the UK?
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McDonald's chicken comes from two suppliers in the UK: Sun Valley and Moy Park. For further information, you might be interested in listening to a recent interview conducted by one of the Quality Scouts with members of staff at Moy Park. (July 2007)
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