McDonald's Locally Made? (2024)

FAQs

Where was McDonald's originally made? ›

1940–1948: The birth of fast-food pioneers

The first McDonald's drive-in was opened in 1940 by brothers Maurice (“Mac”) and Richard McDonald in San Bernardino, California.

McDonald's doesn't buy beef directly from cattle ranches, feedlots or slaughterhouses. Rather, it purchases "individually quick-frozen" patties from dozens of processors worldwide, the tail end of one of the world's most complex supply chains.

We do not have our own purpose built factories to produce McDonald's ingredients or products. We work with a number of suppliers at both global and market level, just like any other restaurant. These suppliers are specialists in their areas, ensuring that we deliver the very best quality for each part of our menu.

Where Do You Get Your Chicken McNuggets®? We work with three dedicated Chicken McNuggets® suppliers with various manufacturing locations within the U.S., such as Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia.

Not far off Route 66 in San Bernardino is a piece of American business history - the original restaurant of fast-food giant McDonald's. A local fast-food franchise company now owns this site and has turned it into a museum.

The oldest McDonald's restaurant is a drive-up hamburger stand at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard at Florence Avenue in Downey, California, United States.

Here are the facts: All of our burger patties in the U.S. are always made with 100% USDA-inspected beef. That's the only ingredient: 100% real beef. Our patties contain no preservatives or fillers, and the only thing we ever add is a touch of salt and pepper when the patties are sizzling hot on the grill.

Fewer burgers are placed on the grill, which somehow results in a hotter, juicier, tastier burger, and the diced white onions are added to the beef patties on the grill as they are cooking, rather than afterwards at the prep table. The cheese has been “tempered” longer to make it meltier as well, Schafer says.

The Parle family, with 10 employees, produces pickles year-round. They have a custom-built harvester and a slick process on grading the pickles for size to suit the fast food chain's specifications. Once the correctly sized pickles are selected, they go into a big swimming pool-sized tank filled with salt brine.

Yes, every patty is 100% real beef with no fillers, additives or preservatives. Curious about our burgers?

Where are McDonald's fries made from? ›

Our World Famous Fries® are made from quality potatoes, including Russet Burbank, Ranger Russet, Umatilla Russet and the Shepody.

Today, nearly 96 percent of the products sold in McDonald's 770 restaurants in China are produced at 43 facilities there.

It buys finished, frozen patties from about 20 food processing companies globally. In the U.S. these include Keystone Foods, a division of the Brazilian food service giant Marfrig group, and Oklahoma City-based Lopez Foods, which has been producing patties for McDonald's since 1968.

As it turns out, the very same Tyson Foods that manufactures our favorite dinosaur nuggets also manufactures chicken products for chains like Taco Bell, KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, Popeyes, and Chick-fil-A.

That's right, McDonald's ketchup tastes different — and some may say, better — than what you get at the store. And, no, it's not just Heinz ketchup masquerading in a McDonald's packet. McDonald's actually makes its own ketchup.

As a result, in 1967, the first McDonald's restaurant outside the U.S. opened its doors in Richmond, British Columbia.

Most historians agree that the American company White Castle was the first fast-food outlet, starting in Wichita, Kansas in 1916 with food stands and founding in 1921, selling hamburgers for five cents apiece from its inception and spawning numerous competitors and emulators.

Dick and Mac McDonald moved to California to seek opportunities they felt unavailable in New England. Failing in the movie business, they subsequently proved successful in operating drive-in restaurants.

The brothers astonishingly agreed to a “handshake” deal whereby they would receive royalties of 1% of the revenues Kroc would make, in perpetuity. Unsurprisingly, this handshake deal was never honoured and the brothers were not able to prove it.