According to Oak Brook, IL-based McDonald’s, the fast food giant “is currently working with its packaging suppliers to ramp up production to meet the demands of this new worldwide packaging program. By the end of 2006, McDonald’s plans to have nutrition information featured on packaging in more than 20ꯠ of its more than 30ꯠ restaurants. The remaining restaurants will implement nutrition information on packaging as it becomes locally relevant and commercially feasible. The new packaging will debut at McDonald’s restaurants at the Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, in February.”
“Customers are coming to McDonald’s in record numbers, and we take their trust in our brand seriously. That’s why we want them to have easy-to-understand nutrition information about our great-tasting food and wide range of menu options. We are putting the information customers need literally into their hands,” says Jim Skinner, McDonald’s chief executive officer.
The new format converts scientific information into a snapshot of a product’s nutrition value and how it relates to calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and sodium. Customer input led the decision to implement this program on a broad scale. Based on research, concepts developed and tested in Colombia, Hong Kong, Scotland, Shanghai, Spain, and the U.S. indicated that customers liked the approach.
A McDonald’s press release quotes Dr. Louis Sullivan, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and a member of McDonald’s Global Advisory Committee, as saying, “McDonald’s has long played a leadership role in providing nutrition information. In the early 1990’s, when our government introduced new nutrition labeling for packaged goods in the U.S., I was impressed by the way McDonald’s helped familiarize consumers with this new information. Using their restaurant tray liners, they reached millions of people to help educate them about the labels. Now McDonald’s has done it again. Their creative approach is scientifically sound and communicates complex information in a clear and accessible way.” —Jim Butschli
