Mcdonalds Corporation Supply Chain

McDonald’s Sustainability and Supply Chain Goals

Ray Kroc, the founder and first CEO of McDonald’s, innovated the way supply chains functioned. His passion for quality, consistency, and customer service, is the reason why McDonald’s has been so successful. Kroc held all suppliers accountable for quality and ingredient standards. Those suppliers that failed to provide what he asked of them were either terminated or put on a fast track probationary period to correct their issues. The suppliers that did comply and meet the McDonald’s standards were rewarded with loyalty and continuous business from the largest foodservice retailer in the world.

The key strategy for McDonald’s has been maintaining good supplier relationships. In many cases McDonald’s is not a supplier’s biggest customer. But by preserving high standards across supplier relationships, the food giant has a great deal of influence. By doing this McDonald’s has turned their key suppliers into business partners. McDonald’s wants to see their suppliers succeed and they do this by constantly collaborating on key issues. McDonald’s takes the approach of “what can we do to help you make this better,” rather than, “fix this yourselves.”

McDonald’s needs to prioritize its sustainability practices very close to their supply chain goals. The supply chain for McDonald’s must always be focused on consistent supply and quality. It must also focus on keeping costs low by large volumes and high quality to continue to have competitive prices. This is a difficult task to accomplish due to the highly fragmented and poorly integrated food supply chains domestically and globally.

Sustainability has been a growing trend the last decade or so and companies like McDonald’s have been going through a learning process. The big question has been how does a company align their strategic business goals with their sustainability goals? The problem that seems to arise is that profitability and sustainability goals are not...