LORD FRIES OF THE
I’ll prove snobs wrong . . . and my straws ARE recyclable, says McDonald’s boss
Never mind Brexit – Britain’s biggest burger boss, Paul Pomroy, has this week found himself at the centre of a huge row over, of all things, paper straws.
It might sound like a storm in a milkshake, but straws are a big deal at McDonald’s, where Pomroy is UK chief executive.
He decided to get rid of hundreds of millions of plastic straws, and replaced them last year with environmentally friendly paper ones.
What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turned out.
Lots of customers hated them, because they went soggy before they could slurp down their colas and shakes.
People even started listing the oldstyle plastic ones on ebay for as much as £5,000 a straw – a spoof, presumably.
The latest instalment of the McStraw meltdown came when a leaked internal company memo revealed that the paper ones couldn’t be recycled. Awkward. It would take more than this, however, to dent Pomroy’s enthusiasm. To call him an evangelist for the American fastfood giant is an understatement.
He is a devotee at the shrine of ronald McDonald, the High Priest of Maccy D’s, the Lord of the Fries.
Cut him, and you suspect he would bleed the red and yellow McDonald’s colours. A 23-year veteran who trained as an accountant and rose through the ranks, he bagged the top job in 2015. He even met his French-born wife Nathalie at a works Christmas party, though she no longer works in the business.
Pomroy is quick to defend the introduction of paper straws.
‘If you think back one or two years, paper straws weren’t widely available until recently and we’ve worked hard with our suppliers to introduce them at scale and quickly.’
They will be recycled, he says – just as soon as his waste management providers have worked out how to do it.
‘Our straws Are recyclable but one of the final pieces of the jigsaw is having the external infrastructure and facilities to actually recycle them.
‘We are not the only business in this position. It is a challenge we believe many in the industry are facing.’
Wouldn’t it have been better to have waited until the straws could be recycled before bringing them in, rather than laying the company open to accusations of hypocrisy and green-washing?
He thinks not. ‘Last year our customers asked us to change our plastic straws to paper ones, so we listened and made that switch.
‘As a dad of two boys, I am extremely passionate about the role we have to play now and for future generations.’
IT MAY come as a surprise to some that McDonald’s is taking the green agenda so seriously, as it is not the first place you would think of as a favourite eaterie for kale-munching eco-warriors.
But then it is a divisive company. Scorned by foodies – perhaps they haven’t heard about the vegan McNuggets launched this year – it is nonetheless a regular haunt for an army of burger-lovers.
As Pomroy says, it has 4m customers a day, ‘so what we do makes a difference. Our recycling credentials are as good or better than anyone else. We are going to
change the McFlurry packaging.’ Plastic lids on ice-creams will be replaced with new packaging from next month, reducing waste by 383 metric tonnes a year.
Salads have been put into 100p-cre-cyclable cardboard boxes instead of plastic containers.
McDonald’s has been upgrading its restaurants in the UK, with a major revamp costing more than £1.1bn over the four years to 2018. The West London branch where we meet has been refurbished with ‘bleachers’– or raised seating – to one side.
The long queues are nowhere in evidence: customers order from big touch screens and have food delivered to their table. Discreet music plays in the background.
Most of the brickbats about the quality of its offerings and its employment practices, Pomroy says, are mere myths.
‘I would be in jail if some of them were true. But it’s better to have a brand people want to talk about.
‘The McJob myth, now that one does irritate me,’ he says. ‘We spend £40m a year on training.
‘In terms of our crew – they like to be called crew – people here are really happy, they are motivated. And they can work their way up very quickly.’
In the eyes of its detractors, McDonald’s represents a US fast food industry intent on colonising the world, replacing local dishes and restaurants with its standardised fare.
It has even spawned its own verb, McDonaldisation, a metaphor invented by sociologist George ritzer in 1993 to describe how societies are becoming more homogenous and losing their distinct cultures.
For Pomroy, though, the glow from the Golden Arches never darkens. He sees the company he leads as a green, family-friendly Mc-topia, with wholesome food and happy staff.
He does acknowledge that there are people who consider it dreadfully downmarket.
‘We do suffer from a snob factor, yes. But I am breaking that down. I want people to judge the brand on facts. If they still don’t like us, then that’s fine,’ he says.
Love it or hate it, it is doing well. McDonald’s restaurants Limited made a profit before tax of £341m in 2017, an increase of 19pc on the year before, not including Ireland and not including income from property and franchises.
ANOTHER issue is that critics brand McDonald’s, whose meals are perceived as calorieladen, as a diet-wrecker. even the United Nations was yesterday telling people to eat less meat.
Pomroy dismisses accusations of selling unhealthy food and claims it is possible to diet successfully while eating at McDonald’s. really? ‘Could you lose weight eating at McDonald’s every day? Yes, depending what you choose.
‘You can pick meals under 400 calories. You can cut out elements to reduce further. You could take the cheese out of the egg McMuffin, or the egg.’
Wouldn’t that just be a muffin? ‘Well yes,’ he laughs. ‘I know I am Mr McDonald’s and I would say that but people blame us for the obesity crisis, and it is unfair.’
At 46, he is a good advertisement for the corporate cuisine. He
shows no sign of middle-aged spread, perhaps thanks to his enthusiasm for the gym and twiceweekly Pilates.
He takes his two young sons, aged seven and four-and-a-half, to the restaurants. His own preference is for wraps.
Nonetheless, Pomroy says it is not insulated from the problems elsewhere on the High Street.
‘I have been in retail for 22 years and this is the toughest trading period we have had,’ he says. ‘It is not just Brexit. You have a perfect storm in the food sector. Last year we had 7pc food inflation, partly because of the pound and partly because of the weather.
‘Anti-social behaviour is an issue on some high streets and it is worse during the day than the night, with groups of kids round school-leaving time. We might change the music and play opera softly to deter them.’
As for business rates, he declines to reveal the bill on his 1,380 restaurants, more than 80pc of which are run by franchisees, but concedes it is in the hundreds of millions of pounds.
On Brexit, he says: ‘We need certainty on tariffs. We are as well set up as we can be for a No Deal scenario, given that we can’t stockpile. We need a transitional period. Common sense needs to prevail.’
Indeed. More than half of the beef in its burgers comes from Ireland. Isn’t that potentially a huge problem if there is no resolution over the border situation?
‘It’s a challenge. That initial period will be interesting if we get No Deal. But I am a pragmatist. We all want the same thing. everyone wants their burger.’