Lettuce take an in-depth look at McDonald’s local produce
McDonald’s favourite menu items start life in the fields of New Zealand
Ever wondered how much fresh produce goes into everyone’s favourite McDonald’s meals per year, and where it all comes from? McDonald’s passionately supports local producers, choosing to source or produce the vast majority of their ingredients from their long-standing Kiwi supplier partners.
By working with the best in their field, McDonald’s gets the freshest produce and best ingredients – and as you can imagine, there’s a lot of them. In 2021, an impressive $175 million was spent on ingredients ordered from New Zealand’s primary industries to serve in McDonald’s restaurants. In 2021, McDonald’s NZ served up 905 tonnes of lettuce to Kiwis alone.
Some of the most popular ingredients are lettuce, onions, potatoes and tomatoes and the farmers who produce them have long standing relationships with McDonald’s.
Lettuce feed you
Sutherland Farms is one long-time grower, harvesting iceberg lettuce from fertile Bombay soil just outside of Auckland. Home to mineral-rich volcanic soil, the Franklin area has some of the most fertile and productive soils in New Zealand.
Because lettuce takes so long to grow, orders need to be placed well in advance – that means the lettuce you might eat from a restaurant today could have been planted up to five months ago (and ordered months before then).
Once grown, the lettuces are harvested, inspected, and chilled straight away by the farmers before being transported to GSF Fresh! where the produce is quality inspected for a second time and then washed, cut, packed, and transported to the McDonald’s distribution centre.
This means McDonald’s gets the freshest and finest lettuce delivered from farms to restaurants already shredded and chilled within 48 hours of being picked.
Unearthing the goods
Since opening the first restaurant in Porirua in 1976, McDonald’s has purchased their onions from GSF Fresh! New Zealand.
380 acres of fertile soil in Pukekohe and Matamata are dedicated solely to growing highquality onions.
The farmers plant once a year to produce the onions McDonald’s needs for their burgers, which means they have to be very organised and accurate with their order. The onions are sorted whole and unpeeled until they’re ready to be used.
Underground but above board
When it comes to choosing the best underground produce, McDonald’s reckon Canterbury has the goods. All four special varieties of potatoes are all grown there, before being brought to McCain’s facility in Timaru.
McDonald’s supplier McCain Foods plays a pivotal role in supplying the nation with their much loved fries as the sole provider of fries for McDonald’s restaurants around the country.
All of the potato suppliers McDonald’s uses have a policy of no genetically modified potatoes in any of their products. As well as being GM-free, McDonald’s fries stay consistently golden thanks to a natural, corn-derived dextrose solution.
Juicy from the vine
In 2021, McDonald’s NZ served up 191 tonnes of tomatoes to Kiwis. Tomatoes primarily come from farms in the Franklin region south of Auckland. All tomato deliveries are carefully inspected prior to processing and are then washed through a multi-stage wash system. Once they get to the restaurant, they’re finally sliced and prepared to go in your burger.
Visit the McDonald’s New Zealand website for further information on where other locally sourced ingredients come from at
Globally, McDonald’s takes a lead in areas where they think they can have the most positive impact, including responsible food sourcing. You can read more about their approach at
M AT C H E D WI T H :
Whether you prefer kingfish, snapper or salmon, with ngohi this fresh you can leave the oven off.