T Behind the Golden Arches
After a dismal showing in the Sunday Times burger test, McDonald’s invited Shanthini Naidoo to take a tour
HE world loves to hate McDonald’s. No other fastfood chain takes as much flak. In just one week, newspapers ran stories about the British teen who suffered a heart attack after eating chicken nuggets every day for years; one about chickens from Brazil that live in cages the size of A4 sheets of paper; and a human meat scandal (which turned out to be a hoax).
Despite all this, South Africans eat eight million of the 68 million burgers guzzled around the world every month, and McDonald’s has opened its 200th store in SA.
The Big Mac fared badly in a Sunday Times burger tasting in March. Joburg restaurateur Steve Maresch said: “There is zero beef in this. I would rather eat my serviette.”
Invited on a no-strings-attached tour, we feared for our health, imagining three-headed cows, chemical processing and pink slime.
First stop was Finlar Fine Foods in City Deep, sole supplier of beef and chicken products to McDonald’s SA. Maresch was surprised to discover that his upmarket restaurant, the Local Grill, which sells steaks for around R150, shares a local supplier of feed-lot beef (Karan Beef) with McDonald’s.
Finlar co-owner Terry Millar, who is like a lean, meaty Willy Wonka, mentions that the factory also produces chicken for Woolworths, whom we all trust for their safety regulations and environmental standards.
“We make Woolworths chicken burgers, schnitzels and nuggets, and some County Fair products,” says Millar. “But 60% of what we produce is for McDonald’s. The chicken suppliers are different, obviously, because Woolworths has a no-hormone and no-antibiotic policy, but when we wanted to be the supplier for McDonald’s we had to jump through hoops. There are 40 safety checks, 48 on some days.”
Sechaba Motsieloa, McDonald’s SA’s corporate affairs director, says Maresch may not have tasted beef in the Big Mac because the blandness of the burger is regulated. “The Big Mac must taste the same all over the world. We have to send samples to a quality centre in Hong Kong from time to time to make sure of it.”
When the British teenager had her heart attack, it turned out she’d eaten chicken nuggets from many other places too (who eats nuggets every day from birth anyway?), but a tabloid posted her photograph outside McDonald’s.
Corporate affairs must be a nightmare, but Motsieloa believes in what he does.
“For us to build trust we have to disclose where our food is from, how it is prepared and what is in it. When we say we use 100% lean beef, we mean it. McDonald’s uses only beef, seasoned with salt and pepper in the shop.”
Seeing is believing, but we are sceptical as we enter the factory, kitted out in space suits and hairnets, our hands sanitised. It is freezing. Staff are in masks and gloves. And it is pristine.
There are no carcasses lying around, no tubs of soya or buckets of ammonia — which Jamie Oliver told us was added to meat by fastfood producers to sanitise inedible offcuts. There are no offcuts, either. The worst was a puddle of pink water. Millar says the plant is broken down, cleaned and rebuilt daily.
Maresch inspects the beef before it is minced and says: “I am really surprised. It is quality meat. Forequarter, which is a decent cut for burgers because of the fat content.”
Millar walks us along the plant. “About 60% of the meat is fresh, 40% frozen. We can trace any burger to the farm it came from.
“We use A-grade meat from South Africa mostly, Namibia and Botswana. About 2% comes from Uruguay just to keep the supply going. We could use C-grade meat and it would not make any difference to the end product because it is minced, but there is not enough supply of it. We don’t use cheap meat, but the product is cheaper because of our buying power. We buy in 250 tons of meat a week.”
The meat is ground three times, which explains the texture and possibly the lack of beefy taste.
Machines form the mince into patties, 45g for Big Macs and 113g for Quarter Pounders. Before packaging, each patty is flash-frozen using liquid nitrogen.
“It can be kept for 90 days before it loses quality, like the meat in your freezer,” says Millar.
Owen Frisby, executive director of the SA Association for Food Scientists and Technologists, says: “As long as the cold chain is maintained there is no problem with freezing. Think of the mammoths that have been frozen for thousands of years. That meat was still edible, believe it or not. But the quality won’t be very good.”
What about mixing meat from different cows across continents?
“Have you heard of boerewors?" asks Frisby. “Ageing and mixing helps to develop flavour. The freshest meat might not be the best for the burger anyway — a mix of more recently slaughtered and matured meat might taste far better. Healthwise, there is absolutely no problem eating it, as long as the cold temperatures are kept constant.”
As for the infamous chicken nuggets, Millar says they are made from breast offcuts, using 3D printing technology.
“McDonald’s is all about efficiency and high demand, and that is the way to keep up with it.”
It is a numbers game, as we discover at the McDonald’s outlet at Ellis Park. Burgers are made to order on a slick production line. The initiator toasts the bun, the burger presser adds the patty, someone else adds salad and sauce, and another person boxes it. Burgers are no longer flipped, but cooked on the grill for exactly 108 seconds.
The lettuce and tomatoes are fresh, from local suppliers. Sauces, however, are imported.
Supply chain director Wayne Aspelling says there is no truth to the rumour that sugar is added to McDonald’s fries (although the buns do contain some sugar, necessary for baking). “The fries are made by McCain in Delmas. They use a specially grown large potato varietal for the super-long fries.”
At the Ellis Park store, the salt that goes onto the chips is measured by a special shaker. Staff members won’t say how much salt goes on, because they don’t know.
The 40/40/20 chip ratio — that is, 40% long, 40% medium and 20% short fries — is standard for every order. Staff use a special scoop to get the ratio right every time.
Frisby, who has no allegiance to any fast-food brand, says it is a myth that big food companies are dodgy.
“Of course there are shady characters, but those would be smaller, mom-and-pop operations who need to cut corners. In most cases, nothing that is bad will be put into food for mass consumption.
“The reason McDonald’s is successful is because it is safe and affordable. They would not risk making anyone sick, especially children. If they put strange things into their
’A mix of more recently slaughtered and matured meat might taste better‘
burgers, people would know. You know that if you go back again, you will get the same thing.”
I still don’t like that the fries are made in palm oil — banned in some countries for the destructive effect obtaining it has on the environment — nor that the oil is reused six times, the maximum allowed. Not only McDonald’s does this, however. Many fine restaurants do it too.
I was also sceptical about the rubbery, perfectly shaped eggs, but discover that these come from normal eggshells and get their shape from the machine that steams them.
It all seems exasperatingly legit, but I can’t get away from the Super Size Me movie and old stories about burgers that keep for 15 years.
Aspelling puts it plainly. “It is a matter of what combination you eat and drink and how often. Salads don’t sell very well at McDonald’s. People come here for indulgence. Because it tastes good.” LS