Global McEthics: Should McDonald's

Ethics be Standardised Across the

Globe?
This case examines ethical criticisms of the US fast-food giant McDonald’s and
explores demands for the company to extend its efforts to maintain legitimacy across
the globe. The case focuses on the problems of obesity and unhealthy eating that
have confronted the company, which are presented in the context of the broader
critique of the chain.

McDonald’s is truly a multinational corporation. By 2018, over 37,000 McDonald’s

restaurants in 119 countries were serving approximately 70 million customers a day. The
market leader in its industry and one of the most vigorous exponents of a global business
approach, McDonald’s has pioneered an innovative franchising-centric business model.
Over 90% of its restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by franchisees, an
approach that has been widely imitated in the fast-food industry and beyond. McDonald’s is
also hugely popular with its core customer base for providing cheap, fun, and convenient
food, earning it a range of affectionate nicknames around the world, including Maccy D’s in

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the UK, Donken in Sweden, McDo in France, Macca’s in Australia, and Makku in Japan. As
McDonald’s heads into the third decade of the 21st century with growing sales, improving
customer satisfaction scores, vast numbers of Facebook likes (78 million, to be precise),
and a new home delivery partnership with UberEats, its enduring commercial success looks
unlikely to falter.

However, since the 1980s, McDonald’s has been subject to enormous criticism of its
business practices across the world. In the US and Europe, McDonald’s has been one of
the main corporate targets of environmentalists, animal welfare activists, nutritionists, and
social justice campaigners. Not only does the company have the distinction of being the
subject of England’s longest ever trial—the legendary 1990s McLibel case—but it was also
the unwitting subject of the Oscar-nominated film, Super Size Me, one of the top 20 highest
grossing documentaries of all time. McDonald’s has probably faced more store
occupations, protests, and online campaigns than almost any other company.

Nutritionists and healthy-eating campaigners continue to roundly criticize the company for
its standard fare of low-cost, high-calorie burgers and fries that many see as a major cause
of spiralling obesity rates, especially among young people. Even its more recent attempts to
introduce healthier menu options have often been greeted with scepticism or hostility, either
because they are seen as too little too late, or as simply not as healthy as they are
purported to be. Meanwhile, with increasing affluence in Asia and Latin America leading to
a wave of diet-related problems similar to those in North America and Europe—such as
escalating rates of obesity and diabetes in children and young adults—many have
suggested that the new directions that McDonald’s has taken in some countries should be
replicated everywhere it does business.

Big Mac under attack

When the epic McLibel trial came to an end after more than three years in 1997, the
McDonald’s corporation must have thought that things could not get any worse. Although
partly vindicated by the judge’s verdict concerning the veracity of some of the claims made
by an obscure London activist group in the late 1980s, the two unemployed campaigners
that the huge company had spent millions of dollars taking to court were ruled to have
proven several of their claims. These included accusations that the company ‘exploits
children’ with its advertising; was ‘culpably responsible’ for cruelty to animals; was ‘strongly
antipathetic’ to unions; paid its workers low wages; falsely advertised its food as nutritious;
and risked the health of its most regular, long-term customers—hardly a positive message
to be sending its millions of customers and critics across the world. The trial attracted
massive international publicity, and even sparked the publication of an acclaimed book, TV
programme, and a film. Most damaging of all, the McSpotlight website was launched,
which immediately made a wealth of information critical of McDonald’s, much of it used in
the trial, freely available to an international audience, even to this day.

More trouble soon came from across the Channel when anti-globalization campaigners
made international headlines for attacking McDonald’s stores in France and other parts of
Europe—a theme which then extended to other parts of the world between 2000 and 2010,

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due to an upsurge in anti-American feeling following the invasion of Iraq. At the same time,
a major thorn in the company’s side in its North American heartland was People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which launched its McCruelty campaign in 1999 to try
to force the company to alleviate animal suffering in its supply chain. Having placed a
moratorium on its campaign in 2000, after McDonald’s agreed to make improvements, it
was reactivated in 2009 due to the firm’s refusal to adopt less cruel slaughter methods.

However, probably the biggest ethical challenge faced by McDonald’s across the globe has
been around issues of health and nutrition. With critics claiming that a diet of fast food has
been a major contributor to escalating rates of obesity, McDonald’s, as the world’s leading
fast-food company, has inevitably found itself first in the firing line. Among the arguments
made by its critics over the years are that the company has failed to provide a balanced
menu, that it provides insufficient nutritional information and guidance, and that it actively
encourages consumers (especially children) to make unhealthy choices, for example by
promoting ‘supersize’ portions.

Meanwhile, in the face of increasing evidence of worldwide obesity, diabetes, and blood
pressure crises, governments started, and have continued, to tackle the fast-food industry
in an effort to address these health and nutrition issues. In 2007, France introduced a legal
requirement for all advertising of unhealthy food and drink to bear a health message.
Ireland, meanwhile, banned all television advertising for food high in fat, sugar, and salt
during children’s programming hours in 2013. In the UK in 2017, the use of cartoon
characters in junk food adverts was banned, as was junk food advertising in media aimed
at children. Discussion of further regulation relating to the sale and marketing of fast food
appears to be a topic which is here to stay, with Australia’s 2018 consultation regarding
fast-food calorie labelling, calls in the UK for even greater fast-food regulation of advertising
on top of the 2017 legislation, and perennial discussions in Russia of fast-food advertising
restrictions.

Big Mac slims down

In the face of such events, and the continuing evolution of regulation, McDonald’s has not
stood idly by, especially once profits looked to be at risk. Not only were activists and
governments focusing more attention on healthier food choices, customer preferences were
also clearly changing. The chain launched a substantial turnaround strategy in 2003 where,
to many people’s surprise, the firm dropped its supersizing options, and put a range of new
healthy options on the menu, including salads and grilled chicken flatbreads, oatmeal for
breakfast, and even the opportunity for concerned parents to replace fries with carrot sticks
and fruit in the ubiquitous children’s ‘Happy Meals’. Advertising campaigns emphasizing the
firm’s fresh and healthy new approach accompanied the menu changes, and extended in-
store and online nutritional labelling also followed——moves once vigorously resisted by
the company.

Beyond its own stores, McDonald’s launched a swathe of exercise and sports initiatives
specially targeted at young people. Promoted under the theme of ‘balanced lifestyles’, the
company sought to show young people the two sides of a healthy lifestyle: a balanced diet

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and  exercise. McDonald’s websites in countries across Europe began including sports
sections in addition to the usual information about stores and menus, and these have now
become a standard feature on national websites. For instance, McDonald’s Germany has
partnered with DFB, the German Football Association, in a programme to provide soccer
badge clubs for children and young people, which has reached more than a million
participants. Likewise, McDonald’s sponsors Canadian minor league hockey via their
‘atoMc’ programme, which supports more than 50,000 players a year.

Such developments have met with considerable scepticism from some of the company’s
critics. This has especially been the case when it has been revealed that some of the firm’s
new menu items, such as particular salads or oatmeal recipes, contain more fat and
calories than the much-maligned hamburger. However, to this and many other criticisms,
the company has typically been quick to respond with rebuttals or further refinements in the
menu. For example, the firm further refined its Happy Meals formula in US stores in 2012 by
reducing the quantity of fries and automatically adding apples, as well as, subsequently,
removing cheese burgers from the Happy Meal menu, and reformulating its chocolate milk
in 2018. In addition, the firm has attempted to make the nutritional content of their products
more transparent by adding calorie labelling to packaging and online calorie calculators in
certain regions, as well as launching the ‘McVegan’ burger in 2017 in some of its
Scandinavian restaurants.

Over time, it has become clear that the shifts underway at McDonald’s are part of a long-
term strategic realignment towards the changing societal values and expectations it is
facing. This was further emphasized by a commitment to serve 100% sustainably sourced
coffee by 2020, which has been kick-started by Rainforest Alliance-certified sustainably
grown coffee being served across its restaurants in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, as
well as in Brazil. Furthermore, in 2013, the company also announced that it would be the
first US chain to label all of its fish products with the widely accepted Marine Stewardship
Council sustainable fish logo; in 2016 it commenced the purchase of sustainable beef from
a Canadian pilot supply chain programme and in 2018 it unveiled a partnership with
Starbucks to develop a global recyclable or compostable drinks cup solution.

Surprising to many has also been the firm’s gradual embracing of greater transparency,
such as the ‘Our Food. Your Questions’ initiative that was launched in Canada in 2012. The
‘Our Food. Your Questions’ campaign allows people to submit any kind of questions about
McDonald’s food to a dedicated website, which it then commits to post online and answer
in an open and honest manner. The campaign is an explicit attempt by the company to
dispel what it regards as myths about its food and inform the public better about its
products because, as its website acknowledges, ‘we haven’t always done a great job of
answering questions’. The campaign was hugely successful in Canada, generating
thousands of questions, millions of views, and billions of social impressions, as well as
garnering multiple industry awards, and consequently has been rolled out across a number
of other regions and countries. In 2013, McDonald’s Australia went one step further with a

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‘Track my Macca’s’ app that enables consumers to scan their burger’s container to discover
the source of the food and where it was processed.

In most respects, McDonald’s strategy appears to have been a success. Trust in the brand
has improved in the face of campaigns such as ‘Our Food. Your Questions’, as well as its
sustainability commitments, and because the menu is healthier, families have a greater
opportunity to provide their children with a more balanced meal under the golden arches.
Even the firm’s fiercest critics seem to have lost some of their momentum in the firm’s
heartlands in North America and Europe.

Big Mac goes east

Despite the apparent success of the McDonald’s ethical turnaround in North America and
Europe, many of the same threats to its reputation have returned to haunt the company in
Asia. With increasing prosperity in emerging economies such as India and China, the
demand for eating out and for a whole range of convenience foods has expanded
substantially since the turn of the century. This has come at a time when Western markets
for traditional fast food have become saturated, leaving little opportunity for significant
growth. Capitalizing on growth in Asia, McDonald’s has targeted major store expansion in
the region, with the firm targeting 250 store openings a year in China up to 2021, making
China McDonald’s second largest market after the US.

But as eating habits have changed, so too have health considerations. Rates of obesity in
China and India have rocketed since the turn of the century. Although only a few decades
ago famine was a more common threat, the region is said now to be facing an oncoming
obesity epidemic, with, for instance, China now possessing the highest overweight
population in the world. Other diet and exercise-related problems such as diabetes and
heart disease are also on the rise..

To date, activists and regulators have not challenged fast-food companies such as
McDonald’s to the same extent that they have been attacked in Europe and North America,
but growing pressure is clearly evident. In China, researchers have shown that the
discourse around McDonald’s has increasingly shifted from one focused on it being a
cheap, modern place for the young, to also incorporating concerns about ‘junk food’,
health and environmental considerations, food safety, and associations with Western
imperialism. State intervention in China, designed to tackle the burgeoning health problems
associated with obesity, is also increasing, for instance with the introduction of the ‘Healthy
China 2030’ initiative, which aims to embed health education into the school curriculum in
order to increase life expectancy. Nevertheless, Ethical Corporation magazine revealed that,
although widespread in Europe, nutritional information was absent on McDonald’s websites
for the Philippines, Hong Kong, and China. Moreover, practices now halted in North
America and Europe appeared to be much in use in Asia—such as dedicated online kids’
zones where the company has been accused of targeting young children with unhealthy
food.

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The company, this time, has been less slow to respond to its critics—a healthy option corn
soup has emerged on the menu in China, vegetarian burgers feature in India, and the
games, competitions, and special offers featured on the company’s Asian kids’ zones have
largely been scaled back. But calories are not yet typically posted on menu boards in Asia
as they are in the UK or the US, and transparency clearly lags behind developments in
Canada and Australia. In general, the overall emphasis on healthy eating, exercise, and a
balanced lifestyle has yet to be actively promoted in Asia to anything like the same extent
as in North America and Europe, even if countries such as Malaysia and Singapore now
feature such programmes. However, signs that the company is moving towards a more
globally integrated approach to health and nutrition emerged in 2013 when the company
announced that it would start offering healthy options as part of its ‘value meals’ in all of its
20 major global markets by 2020. The company has also announced plans to promote and
market only water, milk, and juice as the beverages in its children’s Happy Meals and make
all Happy Meals healthier worldwide by 2022.