Fast food giant is assessing Canadian beef production, but how that may affect producers remains unclear
Most of the ranchers who supply McDonald’s Canada with 67 million pounds of beef a year are already sustainable, says a senior manager for the restaurant chain.
The pilot project announced last year is designed to figure out how that can be demonstrated and verified so that the fast food chain can buy sustainable beef and assure customers that it does so.
Jeffrey Fitzpatrick-Stilwell, senior manager of sustainability for McDonald’s Canada, explained the company’s project Jan. 22 to those at the annual Lethbridge College Tiffin lectures.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The company selected Canada as the site for its pilot project last year.
However, what is sustainability when it comes to beef?
“It’s true, we also didn’t know what that was when we made the announcement,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell in an interview before his speech.
“That was part of us putting a stake in the ground to say we’re going to try to help figure that out, working with the industry and everybody else.”
Beef deemed to be sustainably produced would come from operations that meet certain standards of animal health and welfare and environmental responsibility.
The Global Round Table on Sustainable Beef has identified natural resources, people and community, animal health and well-being, food, and efficiency and innovation as the areas in which sustainable practice will be defined.
The Canadian round table on sustainable beef has now been established, and the McDonald’s pilot will provide input as that industry group establishes definitions and benchmarks, he said.
“The Canadian round table will then take those and develop their own indictors, that may or may not be the ones that we use for the pilot, and they’ll develop their own mechanisms for verification, that may or may not be what we used for the pilot.”
Fitzpatrick-Stilwell said his company is not trying to dictate how those in the cattle industry manage their operations. However, as a major buyer of Canadian beef, it is hard to argue its clout.
Eighty percent of the company’s 67 million lb. of beef comes from Alberta, and all its Canadian restaurants use 100 percent Canadian beef.
“We tried to be clear from the beginning that we’re not creating a McDonald’s standard,” Fitzpatrick-Stilwell said.
“We’re doing this hopefully to support the industry in what they’re doing. We will source to the industry’s standards, not our own once those standards are set.”
McDonald’s is one of many food companies that are working to develop sustainable criteria for their products.
That trend has raised concerns in the beef industry about companies driving the production agenda.
Cattle rancher Travis Hatch of Sunset House, Alta., said in a recent letter that he agreed with the need for sustainability, but the costs might be high.
“Why are urbanites in general so willing to set such high standards for others, farmers in particular, yet one needs only a few minutes observation of garbage, pollution, smog, etc. in a town or city to see what their own environmental standards have accomplished,” said Hatch.
“I firmly believe that there are some very high costs to be paid by everyone, urban and rural alike, if we go down this path, yet there is no discussion or analysis of what those costs will be to let big corporations or government bureaucrats dictate or control the production, sale and distribution of our food.”
Fitzpatrick-Stilwell said McDonald’s made an effort to include all aspects of the beef industry in its discussions about where to proceed with its pilot project, and Canada proved amenable.
“The reaction was, ‘yes, please,’ ” he said.
“The pilot is not to drive the industry to anything. If they select none of the indicators that we use, that’s completely up to them, and our goal as McDonald’s Canada is to source in compliance with what the Canadian round table decides. We’re not developing a McDonald’s standard in any way, shape or form.”
barb.glen@producer.com
