Food Quality & Sourcing

Our Priority ESG Issues

A family sitting and enjoying McDonald's together

Food Safety
We have a long-standing commitment to serve safe and quality food to customers in every single market, each and every day.

A McDonald's employee wearing a face mask holding a bag of food and a drink at the Drive Thru window

Nutrition & Marketing Practices
As one of the most frequented restaurants in the world, we help feed millions of people every day, with a focus on evolving the Happy Meal and making balanced meals more accessible to families across the world.

Responsible Sourcing
We’re using our scale and influence to help positively impact our planet, animals and the people in our supply chain, especially for our priority ingredients where we can have the greatest impact: beef, soy for chicken feed, fiber, palm oil, fish and coffee.

Animal Health & Welfare
We continue to make the health and welfare of animals a priority throughout our supply chain.

Responsible Antibiotic Use
At McDonald’s, we are working to ensure the responsible use of antibiotics in our supply chain, including reducing the use of medically important antibiotics in food animal production.

Strict food safety standards and protocols are embedded in everything we do, from food and product sourcing, menu development, packaging and distribution to the running of our restaurants.

We are always listening to our customers and evaluating our menu to identify ways to evolve our offerings while maintaining the great taste our customers know and love. McDonald’s will continue to take a responsible approach to our Happy Meals by offering balanced options and promoting menu items that contribute to recommended food groups, such as fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy.

The road between a great McDonald’s menu item and a delighted customer is long and complex. Our global supply chain spans countries, continents and industries. We approach responsible sourcing holistically, understanding that our work impacts the livelihoods of people, the health of our shared planet and the well-being of animals. We believe we must respect them all.

Serving safe, quality food relies on animals that are properly cared for throughout their lives. At McDonald’s, this includes both animal welfare and responsible antibiotic use. We remain focused on the positive impact we can have by working with our suppliers.

Learn how we aim to preserve and regenerate nature, support biodiversity and engage the communities and farmers closest to natural ecosystems, as well as how we are building business resilience into our business in a changing world. We are also committed to respecting the human rights of the people who work for us, directly and across our supply chain.

Recent Highlights

Food Safety

2,000+ farmers globally on McDonald’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standards.
2,077 third-party audits performed according to our Supplier Quality Management System (SQMS) in 2021.
93% of our audited suppliers fully met our SQMS standards in 2021.
46,241 restaurant food safety audits (announced and unannounced) conducted in 2021.

Nutrition & Marketing Practices

Continued monitoring markets to support progress against the Global Happy Meal Goals, which we are on track to publish progress against in 2023.
Strengthened internal network with representation from Nutrition, Sustainability, Quality Assurance and Supply Chain functions to collaborate and share best practices on nutrition across the company and insights across our global markets.

Responsible Sourcing

100% of the palm oil we sourced in 2021 was certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
100% of soy sourced in 2021 for the feed of chicken supported deforestation-free supply chains.
98.7% of our ground and whole bean coffee was sustainably sourced in 2021.
96.3% of wild-caught fish came from verified sustainable fisheries in 2021.

Animal Health & Welfare

France, Germany, Australia and the U.K. have achieved a 100% cage-free egg supply chain, and the U.S. sources more than 74% cage-free eggs as of the end of 2021.
More than 61% of our pork purchased in the U.S. comes from producers that have phased out the use of gestation stalls for housing confirmed pregnant sows.
We are currently on track to achieve our 2024 Broiler Welfare Commitments across our in-scope markets, which once fully implemented, will positively impact more than 70% of our global chicken supply.

Responsible Antibiotic Use

Pilots in our 10 in-scope beef sourcing markets are helping to inform future market-appropriate targets for the responsible use of medically important antibiotics – as defined by the WHO – in our supply chain.
We’ve eliminated the use of antibiotics defined as “Highest Priority Critically Important to Human Medicine” in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. in our broiler chicken supply chain.

Related News

Reporting Across Our Purpose & Impact Web Pages

This section of our website – Our Purpose & Impact – is a living report where we share our approach to, and progress against, our priority ESG issues. Our goals and performance work in tandem to drive transformation across our four Impact Areas – the topics we know matter most to our stakeholders – helping up stay accountable for realizing our purpose and driving meaningful impact. Within these Impact Areas we have established strategies, goals, policies and performance indicators to manage our performance.

Relevant Reports and Summaries

See All Current and Past Reports

Related Issues

Additional issues across our four pillars include:

Illustration of a man holding a box of donated food, eggs, and produce in front of a community of houses

Community Connection

We are committed to being good neighbors everywhere we operate.