McDonald's Agricultural Assurance Programme (MAAP)
The McDonald’s Agricultural Assurance Programme (MAAP) is the tool that we use to assess the agricultural production standards employed in growing the farm products used in our menu. We also use this tool to try and ensure we source more products from farms that work to higher standards.
MAAP covers our core agricultural products; including beef, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese, potatoes, wheat, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber.
The Flagship Farm project builds on our MAAP approach, by identifying some of the progressive farmers in our supply chain that exemplify good practice in their specific area, and are comfortable sharing those good practices. The investment we have made in MAAP underpins the flagship farms programme and MAAP continues to be the main way we monitor and control the quality, safety and sustainability of the raw materials entering our supply chain. We have worked with MAAP for the last 7 years so the Flagship Farms project demonstrates the ‘tip of the iceberg’ while MAAP demonstrates our long-term commitment and investment.
MAAP enables McDonald’s to monitor to following key areas of agricultural production:
- environmental management
- good agricultural practices
- animal welfare
- animal health
- transparency, and
- genetics.
Covering each of these areas are extremely detailed standards that we request suppliers to adhere to; some ‘required’ and some ‘future’ targets. We assess compliance in each product area, and set goals for the following year. Through this mechanism we drive continuous improvement within our supply chain.
Standards are reviewed annually, taking into account revised industry guidelines, reflecting current issues and driving improved performance.