Our Commitment to Quality

At McDonald’s, we take great care to ensure that what we serve every day is safe, quality food. That means we use 100% real beef patties seasoned with just a pinch of salt and pepper. It means our Egg McMuffin® is made with a freshly cracked egg. And, our Filet-O-Fish® sandwich is made with 100% whitefish sourced from sustainably managed fisheries. It means our Chicken McNuggets® are made with white meat chicken. Simply put, it means real, quality ingredients and always evolving what matters to you.

We believe in the responsible use of antibiotics important to human medicine* to help preserve their effectiveness for human and animal health in the future. In August of 2016, we accomplished our goal to only source chickens in the U.S. not treated with antibiotics important to human medicine.** Building on this progress, in 2017 we set out to eliminate the highest priority antibiotics across our global chicken supply chain.

We didn’t stop there. In December 2018, McDonald’s announced a policy to reduce the overall use of antibiotics important to human health, in our beef supply chain. Our policy covers for our top 10 beef sourcing markets around the world, including the U.S., representing more than 85% of our global beef supply.

Find out more about our work on the responsible use of antibiotics in our antibiotics policy.

*As defined by the World Health Organization.
**Farmers still use ionophores, a class of antibiotics that are not prescribed to people, to help keep chickens healthy.

Burgers are an integral part of our menu, but that’s just one of the reasons we’re on a journey to advance more sustainable beef production. We’re striving to improve environmental practices in how beef is produced, make a positive difference in the lives of farmers, and to drive improvements in animal health and welfare. By joining forces with our partners, our beef sustainability goal is to influence industry-wide changes on a global scale.

Every day, our kitchens work to prepare your food just the way you like it. That’s why we introduced fresh beef in our Quarter Pound* burgers, cooked when you order, then served hot and deliciously juicy.** Our buns are freshly toasted hot and golden to perfectly complement your favorite burgers and sandwiches.

We’re on a food journey, and our menu shows it. We’ve evolved everything from how we cook our beef patties, to the ingredients we use in new and old favorites. We use real butter for our breakfast items and a freshly cracked egg in our Egg McMuffin®. In 2018, we announced that all of our seven classic burgers* have no artificial preservatives, no artificial flavors and no added colors from artificial sources. (Our pickle contains an artificial preservative, so skip it if you like.)

We’re proud of our commitment to only source cage-free eggs by 2025 in the U.S. and Canada, a commitment that has been said to have had a ripple effect throughout the industry. Today, McDonald’s USA is 60% of the way to our goal, and in 2020, we sourced more than 1.1 Billion cage-free eggs for our U.S. restaurants, some of which are used in our Egg McMuffin®.

We’ve made our breakfast even more popular with positive change. Our McGriddles®, omelet style eggs and pork sausage patties do not contain artificial preservatives, artificial flavors or added colors from artificial sources. We’re using real butter and making the transition to cage-free eggs. Plus, McCafé® now features more tastes and choices at the convenience and value only McDonald’s can offer.

McDonald’s is making meaningful changes to our coffee supply chain. We’ve partnered with other industry leaders in a shared effort to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product by joining Conservation International’s Sustainable Coffee Challenge.

In 2017, 54% of our coffee globally was sourced sustainably through Rainforest Alliance, UTZ, Fair Trade International and Fair TradeUSA certifications, as well as programs approved by the McCafé Sustainability Improvement Platform, a framework to guide our entire coffee supply chain. Not only are we committed to protecting soil and water, but McDonald’s and its partners empower local farmers with training in sustainable agriculture techniques. Already 100% of the espresso beans used in the McCafé beverages restaurants are sustainably sourced and Rainforest Alliance Certified™.

Learn more from our sustainable coffee sourcing efforts.

*Includes espresso-based drinks and coffee brewed at restaurants and all coffee retail products.

The milk we use in our low-fat white Milk Jugs and reduced sugar* low-fat chocolate Milk Jugs comes from cows that are not treated with rbST, an artificial growth hormone.**

*25% less sugar than leading Quick Service Restaurants’ low-fat chocolate milk.^
^14g of sugar vs. avg. 23g at leading Quick Service Restaurants.

**No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows.

The Happy Meal® has been enjoyed by families around the world for decades, bringing people together to share moments and create lasting memories. Just as every family around the world is different, our Happy Meal changes with them.

We’re committed to protecting fish supplies and healthy oceans by making sustainable fish sourcing the industry standard. Every Filet-O-Fish® sandwich served in the U.S. is made with Alaska pollock from the one of the largest Marine Stewardship Council-certified fisheries in the world. In fact, all of the whitefish we serve globally is sourced from sustainably managed wild-caught fisheries.

Change is good, especially when it means adding new tastes to our menu. 

It’s been a longstanding practice to provide you with relevant nutrition information so you can make informed food choices. We’re continuing to develop ways to provide this information to you such as our Nutrition Calculator and our Mobile App. We work to ensure that nutrition information for our menu items is available and accessible through all owned websites and mobile apps used for ordering.