Visitors to Fieldays ask why multinational food giant McDonald’s is there giving away free soft serve ice cream and apple pies. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill talked to the company after a sustainable beef roundtable discussion and finds out why.
McDonald’s stand at Fieldays served soft serve ice cream, burgers and apple pies. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
Beetroot takes about four months to mature.
When you are growing thousands of tonnes for an iconic hamburger brand, you need plenty of advance warning.
That’s why McDonald’s tell beetroot growers a year in advance when they plan to sell Kiwi Burgers, the company’s Impact and Communications head Simon Kenny reveals.
“Our impact on the supply chain on the scale we operate is interesting,” he says in a laid back way which belies the impact McDonald’s has on New Zealand’s primary industries.
Kenny had just been part of a panel discussion at Fieldays by the New Zealand Roundtable for Sustainable Beef members.
McDonald’s – an inaugural member of the panel – sources about 10 per cent of the beef produced in this country.
SPCA chief scientific officer Arnja Dale talks about the importance of ‘shade and shelter’ for farm animals at the Sustainable Beef roundtable forum held during Fieldays. Photo: Supplied.
The company bought 6601 tonnes of beef and 589 tonnes of Angus beef for its burgers here and 37,000 tonnes of beef was exported to other McDonald’s markets.
“So, while we’re a minnow in the McDonald’s world in terms of restaurants, we’re a strategically important country in a supply chain that feeds around 70 million people around the world each day.”
Getting the country’s beef farmers, producers and industry experts talking to each other was therefore critical, says Kenny.
Because beef farming is the single biggest contributor to McDonald’s greenhouse gas emissions, it explained why the restauranteur works with the beef sector to look at ways to further reduce methane emissions.
But it is not just beef for the patties that McDonald’s sources locally. There are potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, chickens, milk, cheese, eggs, buns and beetroot for the Kiwiburger. The burger – which was initially trialled and proven a success in five Hamilton restaurants in the early 1970s – only returns as a limited-time item.
Where McDonald’s sources its food from in New Zealand.
Consumers often think it is in response to competitors’ actions but Kenny quickly disavows that notion by saying the company needs to tell growers months in advance so they can grow thousands of extra tonnes of beetroot.
“There’s the number of extra (free range) eggs as well. You can’t just whip up a million extra eggs,” he says.
Many beef farmers do not know what happens to their product when it leaves the farm gate and the stand gave the company the opportunity to tell that story.
The panel discussion included roundtable chair Richard Scholefield, a beef farmer, Rabobank sustainable business development head Blake Holgate, AgResearch scientist Grant Rennie, Beef and Lamb NZ chief executive Sam McIvor and SPCA chief scientific officer Arnja Dale.
They discussed the future productivity, profitability and resilience of the beef sector and how working together contributes to improvement across the industry.
Simon Kenny
Kenny also revealed he overheard one farmer saying when he spotted the McDonald’s stand: “That that American beef.”
“I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and say no,” he told the panel.
Dale says New Zealand’s beef production is world leading in its care of animals.
“There are things we could do better – shade and shelter for our animals for example,” she says.
Scholefield managed Whangara Farms – 8500ha on the North Island’s East Coast with 7500 head of cattle and 60,000 sheep – and became chair of the roundtable when it was established in 2019. He is also a Beef and Lamb farmer councillor.
The roundtable supports the continuous improvement of beef and celebrates the work done by the beef industry value chain.
“We don’t tell our stories well enough,” he says.
McDonald’s beef roundtable member Simon Kenny chats to a farmer at Fieldays about sustainable beef. Photo: Supplied.
