With 3.75m customers using its restaurants in the UK and Republic of Ireland each day, McDonald’s remains an important outlet for produce from British and Irish farms.“Our customers are telling us that they expect and want us to be sourcing more British and Irish products where it's available,” McDonald’s UK supply chain director Connor McVeigh said in an interview the Irish Farmers Journal this week.
With 3.75m customers using its restaurants in the UK and Republic of Ireland each day, McDonald’s remains an important outlet for produce from British and Irish farms.
“Our customers are telling us that they expect and want us to be sourcing more British and Irish products where it's available,” McDonald’s UK supply chain director Connor McVeigh said in an interview the Irish Farmers Journal this week.
The fast food chain continues to use British and Irish beef only, with 42,000t of beef used in its burgers in UK restaurants last year.
“Dawn Meats supply all of the beef that goes into our Republic of Ireland business and they supply a significant proportion of the beef that goes into our UK operation. Linden Foods have also been supplying beef since 1999,” McVeigh said.
He said that slightly over half its beef comes from UK farms and added that the scale of its requirement means that beef from the Republic of Ireland will continue to be needed. “McDonald’s customers recognise that it is right and proper for us to import product from the Republic of Ireland,” he said.
In the past 18 months, McDonald’s has moved towards sourcing 100% British potatoes for its fries in UK restaurants. All pork, eggs and milk used are also UK-origin.
However, chicken is sourced from UK, Europe, Thailand and Brazil. “In last five years, we have increased the amount of chicken sourced from British and Irish farms by fourfold,” McVeigh added.
He said that the continued move to sourcing local food could also be beneficial if trade is disrupted after the UK withdraws from the EU. “With the grey of Brexit approaching, it is positioning us well,” McVeigh said.
The McDonald’s business in the UK and Republic of Ireland continues to expand having recorded growth every quarter for the past 11 years.
McVeigh said that long-term relationships with suppliers are important as consistency in supply is needed with the fast food chain offering a relatively small number of product lines.
“There is 26g of lettuce in our most popular product, the Big Mac. If we do not have lettuce available then we can’t sell Big Macs and generally customers won’t be happy to transfer to something else,” McVeigh said.
McDonald’s UK restaurants in 2016:
42,000t of beef13,500t of pork74m litres of milk130m free range eggs290,000t of potatoes Read more
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