You know what they say about McDonald’s. (And who doesn’t?) But the belief that they generate the world’s largest mountain of trash is really just an urban legend. Insiders report, McD’s has one of the industry’s best food waste control programs…
‘Even the best corporate citizen must be SEEN to do good…’
Food waste is one of the restaurant sector’s biggest problems. Official figures estimate between 22 and 33 billion pounds of food from restaurants is wasted annually in the US.
Blame the big guys
There’s an old saying: “The bigger you are, the bigger the target you make’. So it is with McDonald’s – the world leader in Fast Food, with countless billions served.
“As the top brand among the biggest fast-food chains in America, it’s easy to conclude McDonald’s might be the biggest contributor to this food waste problem,” The Takeout suggests.
But that would be a gross error of assumption. And bad journalism.
“The truth could never be further from that, as the Golden Arches implements an efficient protocol to address its food waste.”
What they do
McD’s is well aware that it’s leadership position in the industry is a highly-visible one that comes with certain responsibilities. One of those is to demonstrate that it’s a good corporate citizen.
Another old saying: “It’s not good enough to do the right thing. You have to be SEEN doing it.”
So, McDonald’s long ago adopted a custom-tailored waste management program based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Food Recovery Hierarchy.
A practical approach
The EPA stresses that preventing waste is even better than dealing responsibly with that which is pro-duced. The best way to prevent waste is to buy only that is needed, make only what is needed and deploy only what is needed.
“We keep a close eye on what we sell at different times of the day, which means that restaurants only order and prepare the amount of food that is likely to be sold,” the company explains on its website.
Where the leftovers go…
The McD’s operating manual specify strict holding time limits for made-ahead popular menu items. For example, burgers made in anticipation of a rush are help for no longer than 10 minutes under the warming lamps. Fries are tossed after 5 minutes.
So there are, inevitably, ‘losses’.
But there’s nothing unwholesome about those time-expired products. Some locations donate the excess or discarded items to organizations such as Feeding America, Food Donation Connection, and the local Food Bank. Others, fearing legal repercussions if someone gets sick from eating the McLeft-overs, divert them to community composting programs.
In the end – believe it or not! – McDonald’s produces less than 1 percent of waste from its food operations.
My take
And food is not the only dimension in which McD’s is tacking waste. The company has a whole sep-arate program to, “eliminate unnecessary packaging, identifying alternative materials and increasing opportunities for recovery.”
Bravo! McD’s…
May your efforts be a taken as an example by other major corporations – and not only those in the Fast Foodsphere…
~ Maggie J.