MAAP Q & A
An interview with Keith Kenny – Senior Director – McDonald’s Supply Chain
Q. How was MAAP originally developed?
A. MAAP was first developed back in 2001. Basically, we developed a set of standards that we wanted to see our supplying farms complying with. But we knew the challenge was going to be how we were going monitor it. Most of the products we were looking at are commodities - so they’re not produced specifically by the farmer for McDonald’s. Potatoes are, as we specify particular varieties, but things like wheat and beef are produced independently to us. And the vast number of supplying farms – over 500,000 – added to the challenge. Ultimately, we knew the agricultural standards we wanted to see – but the challenge was how to assess it.
Q. So how was this resolved?
A. Well we decided to focus on looking at existing farm assurance schemes. There are currently over 300 assurance schemes used in Europe by the farmers who supply our raw material. We benchmarked each of these schemes against the criteria in our own MAAP standards and took into account the extent to which they are audited on the member farms. So we then knew how each scheme performed in relation to MAAP. But still, the question remained, if we don’t know what farms our direct suppliers are sourcing from, how can we find out which assurance standards they comply with?
Q. So how do you audit the supplying farms?
A. We don’t. We’ve really made the most of our close relationships with our direct suppliers to solve the challenge. As I mentioned, we analyse all the assurance schemes against our set of standards – so we know how ‘good’ each scheme is in relation to the ideal standards that we want to see. And then we ask our direct suppliers to work with their suppliers of raw material to assess how much comes from each scheme.
So, take beef as an example. The abattoirs buy beef directly from the farms and record all the details; quantities, qualities, etc. Our suppliers buy beef from a range of abattoirs. For instance, one of our suppliers is ESCA Germany, who buys beef directly from a number of different abattoirs before making it into patties. One of their supplying abattoirs is ‘Thomsen’. Thomsen provides ESCA with details of the tonnage of meat purchased from each relevant quality scheme (as they record which farms work to which quality scheme standards). ESCA then collates all this information from each of their suppliers and enters it into the MAAP database.
Q. How is all the information captured?
A. The supplier (ESCA in the beef example) will enter the information onto our MAAP database. It contains a vast amount of information. For instance, we have a number of different beef patty suppliers like ESCA. Each one buys meat from a number of different abattoirs. And each abattoir buys beef from a much larger number of farms, each working to a variety of agricultural assurance schemes. So, for any one supplier, we can go into the database and see where the products are coming from, which quality schemes they are produced to, the amount of product from each scheme, and how the quality scheme matches with our aspirational aims / targets.
Q. What do you do with all the information once you have it?
A. Once we’ve captured all the information we set targets for each of our direct suppliers to encourage them to purchase more of their raw material from assurance schemes that correlate closely with the standards we’ve developed. So year-on-year we will get raw material in our products of continuously improving quality. We also annually assess the assurance schemes and how they comply with the MAAP standards. And we revise the MAAP standards to make sure they are pushing the boundaries in terms of good practice in sustainable agriculture.
Q. What will you do when the farms supplying raw material all meet your MAAP standards?
A. They never will. MAAP is an ongoing journey about continuous improvement and evolution. When the farms start getting close to the standards we’ve set we’ll revise the standards to be more challenging. The aim is to improve the quality of our product year-on-year and challenge industry to improve practices. And if we can do that, we’re achieving our goals.