McDonalds shows ongoing commitment to Scottish agriculture at The Royal Highland Show

McDonalds will be exhibiting at the Royal Highland Show (24^th-27^th June) for the fourth consecutive year demonstrating its continued commitment and investment in Scottish agriculture. The new interactive stand is set to appeal to all from families to farmers, and can be found on Avenue 0, stand number 565.

This years stand will focus heavily on provenance and quality of ingredients and echo the theme of the recent Big Nothing advertising campaign during which customers learn that our burgers are 100% British beef with nothing added except for a pinch of salt and pepper.

For some time now, provenance and quality has been of utmost importance to McDonalds and significant investment has seen improvements to the quality of the ingredients at the heart of the menus most popular meals. For example, McDonalds only uses free range eggs, 100% British pork and British organic milk in their teas, coffees, milk bottles and porridges. Customers too are placing greater importance on provenance and quality and in particular two thirds of Scots (65%)* claim that food quality is of such high importance now that it influences where they choose to eat out. Its with this in mind that the stands creative was developed.

Visitors to the stand will find a variety of different activities to take them right back to the start of the McDonalds supply chain and exemplify the quality of its ingredients, including:

• Interactive question and answer units for families to test their knowledge on.

• Representatives from the beef, milk, egg and potato supply chains, who are behind the sourcing of quality ingredients, to answer questions
• And a McDonalds quiz for kids of any age to take part in and enjoy a free McDonalds fruit bag afterwards to keep them going.

Commenting on the activity, Thomas Kelly, Vice President with responsibility for Scotland states: McDonalds is proud to be a major supporter of the Scottish agriculture industry which supplies around 16% of the beef McDonalds use across the UK. Last year McDonalds purchased over 5,400 tonnes of Scottish beef from 745 Scottish farmers. In addition McDonald’s main supplier of French fries in the UK, McCain Foods used 10,775 tonnes of seed potatoes, grown on 48 farms in areas such as Aberdeenshire, Angus, Inverness, Kincardineshire and Perthshire equating to almost 10 per cent more than in 2008.

As one of the largest agricultural events in the UK and Scotlands premier agricultural show the Highland is expecting a record number of visitors. It takes place at the Ingliston Showground, near Edinburgh Airport between the 24th and 27th of June.

* research taken from Eating Out in the UK, 2009 A Comprehensive Analysis of the Informal Eating Out Market is an independent piece of research carried out by Allegra Strategies Food Strategy Forum, and sponsored by forum member, McDonalds UK

• McDonalds has proudly run its business in Scotland since 1987 and currently has 92 restaurants across the country.
• McDonalds currently employs around 6,000 staff in Scotland.
• McDonalds is a founding partner and sponsor of the Food Animal Intitative (FAI), a long-term farming project in Oxfordshire, in conjunction with Oxford Universitys Zoology Department. The FAI is committed to developing commercially robust alternative farming methods that significantly raise animal welfare standards and address human health and environmental concerns.
• Since 2002 McDonald’s partnership with the Scottish FA has created over 1,400 volunteer community football coaches, providing over 80,000 children with access to quality coaching during school time.  In the last year, McDonalds grassroots coaching programme has created 674 new childrens teams across Scotland, including 316 girls teams.
• A balanced diet and active lifestyle are important to us all. McDonalds approach is to educate and raise awareness of nutritional information, as well as work where possible to make changes to the menu to help make these balanced choices as easy as possible.
• McDonalds has provided customers with nutritional information since 1984. Guideline Daily Amounts represent nutritional value in clear tables on much of McDonalds packaging.
• Detailed nutrition, allergen and ingredient information is available on www.mcdonaldsmenu.info
• In 2007 McDonalds created www.makeupyourownmind.co.uk to provide people with the opportunity to ask any question about its food or business and receive a personal reply.
• Get active, find a local restaurant or see whats in store at www.mcdonalds.co.uk