McDonald’s announced last week that its Quarter Pounder burgers would be made of fresh beef, instead of frozen patties, in most of its restaurants by the middle of next year, in a bid to overhaul its menu and image.
However, the change has been met with scepticism from food safety specialists and McDonald’s franchisees, who have reportedly raised concerns over what they described is “a food safety disaster waiting to happen”.
The director of food safety at UK food and health safety specialists STS, Mike Williams, noted that although “McDonald’s are renowned for their robust training regimes,” starting to use fresh beef “will probably require a period of adjustment and mistakes may well happen”.
Williams said: “McDonald’s have taken an interesting step here and it’s clear that the quality of their product is at the forefront of their thinking.
“Cooking and serving chilled, fresh burgers might be new to McDonald’s but many branded groups and individual operators across the UK have been doing this for years with a great deal of success.”
He went on to highlight: “The first step in reducing risk is to ensure that the meat supply chain is well controlled and it’s safe to assume that McDonald’s will have this well in hand.
“Looking at the handling methods that are implemented on a day-to-day basis by staff members is the next step, and ensuring that personal hygiene standards are maintained at the highest level is critical,” Williams concluded.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
