McDonald's sources chicken from major poultry suppliers, with key partners including Tyson Foods (globally and in the U.S.) and Australian suppliers like Ingham's, Baiada, and Turosi, often adhering to higher welfare standards like RSPCA Approved certification in regions like Australia. The specific supplier varies by country, but large global players and local producers contribute to their extensive supply chain for items like Chicken McNuggets and burgers.
A Meat & Fish Supplier, Keystone Foods
Keystone Foods provides many ingredients, like some of the chicken for our Chicken McNuggets®.
Today, Keystone's US operations are proud to produce and deliver the highest quality beef, chicken and fish products to McDonald's, including more than 150 million pounds of beef, 300 million pounds of chicken and 15 million pounds of fish each year.
It supplies Yum! Brands chains that use chicken, including KFC and Taco Bell, as well as McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Walmart, Kroger, IGA, Beef O'Brady's, small restaurant businesses, and prisons.
Bill Gates owns a farm that supplies potatoes to McDonald's, but not all McDonald's french fries come from his land: 100 Circles Farm: Gates' investment firm, Cascade Investments, owns this 14,500-acre farm in Washington state that supplies potatoes to McDonald's.
The unhealthiest item at McDonald's is often cited as the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes, due to its massive calories, sodium, sugar, and saturated fat content (over 1300 calories and 122% of daily saturated fat). Other contenders for least healthy include large burgers like the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, large fries, shakes, and some breakfast wraps, packed with fat, salt, and refined carbs.
What Do the GMO Food Labels Look Like?
Patties are often made from 100% beef, including cuts like chuck, round, and sirloin. Their US based chains use Lopez Farms for their beef. McDonald is very transparent about where they source their ingredients.
McDonald's sues Tyson, JBS and other beef producers for allegedly fixing prices. The fast food giant, which is the world's largest buyer of beef, alleges major meat companies conducted illegal acts to drive down supplies.
Before August 2016, dimethylpolysiloxane and TBHQ were listed as ingredients in the McNuggets cooking process. According to Lisa McComb, a media relations representative for McDonald's, dimethylpolysiloxane is used as a matter of safety to keep the frying oil from foaming.
Made with 100% chicken breast meat
Do you prefer Chicken Selects® or a Grilled Chicken Salad? We only use chicken breast meat across our entire chicken range.
For fast food with real chicken, focus on dedicated chicken chains like Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, and Raising Cane's, which use whole muscle chicken breast, but also check brands like Culver's and even McDonald's (for nuggets) and Burger King (for some sandwiches) that offer real chicken products, though ingredient lists can vary with added seasonings or breading.
In 1935, farmer and trucker John W. Tyson started hauling chickens from Northwest Arkansas to markets in Kansas City and St. Louis. This eventually became the largest American-owned producer of chicken, beef, pork and prepared foods.
The number one ingredient in chicken nuggets from McDonald's is 100 percent white boneless chicken breast meat. Past myths have circulated that the meat is full of byproducts, but their current recipe uses only 100 percent chicken breast.
McDonald's distributes over 1.5 billion toys annually through its Happy Meals—a figure so colossal it dwarfs the output of major toy companies and has turned the fast-food giant into an accidental yet undisputed titan of the toy industry.
Luckily for us, McDonald's largest supplier, Lamb Weston, sells the exact french fry in most supermarkets, so you can make them yourself at home. The potato company has been supplying McDonald's with fries since 1971, and the Golden Arches account for 14% of its total sales.
On October 28, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a statement regarding their investigation, indicating evidence does not point to ground beef as the likely source of contamination. There is no further testing planned for beef patties.
Tyson created a custom chicken breed for McNuggets
With a new idea in place, McDonald's enlisted Tyson Foods to supply chicken for the McDonald's chicken nuggets, and Tyson more than obliged; they actually made a custom breed of larger-breasted chicken known as the “Mr. McDonald.”
HealthDay News — US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have uncovered dozens of violations at a McDonald's supplier tied to last year's deadly E. coli outbreak, which sickened over 100 people and led to a massive recall of onions used in the fast-food giant's signature Quarter Pounder burgers.
Here are the facts: All of our burger patties in the U.S. are always made with 100% USDA-inspected beef.
Keystone Foods – Makes nuggets for McDonald's and other chains.
The McDonald's Big Mac is a 100% beef burger with a taste like no other. The mouthwatering perfection starts with two 100% pure all beef patties and Big Mac Sauce sandwiched between a sesame seed bun. It's topped off with pickles, crisp shredded lettuce, finely chopped onion and a slice of American cheese.
Currently, more than 90 percent of U.S. corn, upland cotton, and soybeans are produced using GE varieties. GE crops are broadly classified in this data product as herbicide-tolerant (HT), insect-resistant (Bt) or stacked varieties (which are a combination of both HT and Bt traits).
Here is a list of common food items that are considered non-GMO:
Five numbers in the PLU code & the number starts with “9” means that the produce was grown organically and is not genetically modified. An organic banana would be: 94011. These produce items fall under the standards created by the FDA for organic foods. You can read more about USDA Organic Guidelines here.