Hear what John Buchanan has to say about how McDonald’s can be more sustainable “From Farm to Fork”
“Customers hold McDonald’s to a very high standard, and increasingly, they want to know that the companies they trust – and whose products they are buying and feeding to their kids – are working towards solutions. Overall, McDonald’s is definitely one of the leaders and working constructively with suppliers to improve. McDonald’s can and should do more to bring in more actors to help solve critical issues impacting their supply chain. “-John Buchanan, Conservation International
Where the food comes from – McDonald’s Supply Chain
We are in the food business, so we care a lot about where our food comes from and how it is produced – well before it enters our restaurants. We strive to ensure that every link of the supply chain contributes positively to the safety, quality, and availability of our final products. We also want our product ingredients to be produced in ways that contribute positively to the development of sustainable agricultural and food manufacturing practices.
Varying degrees of influence –
The McDonald’s Supply Chain
As you might imagine, our supply chain is large and complex. We have numerous direct suppliers – companies that make or deliver final products for our restaurants. We have an even larger number of indirect suppliers – farms and facilities that grow and process the ingredients that get delivered to our direct suppliers.
McDonald’s does not actually grow or produce any of the food we sell. So we work closely with our direct suppliers to continuously improve the practices that impact their employees, their communities, the environment, their own suppliers and, of course, our customers. Examples of this type of work include our Social Accountability program and our environmental scorecard. Review of adherence to applicable requirements of these programs and others related to sustainable supply are included in McDonald’s Supplier Performance Index - the primary evaluation tool used to evaluate our suppliers’ overall performance in serving our needs.
Our suppliers are expected to extend our vision of sustainable supply to their own suppliers (our indirect suppliers). We also ask them to help us understand industry-wide sustainability challenges and opportunities related to the ingredients they use to make our products.
We don’t have direct control over such issues, but we can use our size and recognized brand to be a positive influence by raising questions, bringing people to the table and encouraging improvement.
Making progress toward a sustainable future
We have been promoting a range of sustainable practices in our supply chain for many years. Some recent accomplishments include the following:
- We launched an enhanced Social Accountability program, including online training for suppliers, their facility managers, and McDonald's supply chain staff.
- 99% of our 523 approved abattoirs were audited for animal welfare in 2007, and 99.2% of those passed their audits.
- Seven of our nine largest markets have introduced the environmental scorecard to their suppliers.
- In 2007, 91% of our fish was sourced from fisheries without any unsatisfactory sustainability ratings
We also know there is much more to do. We will continue working with our direct suppliers, advisors and relevant industry organizations to make sure our suppliers are aware of the issues. We will also continue to support the development of additional multi-stakeholder efforts that address sustainability issues in agriculture.