Nutrition & Marketing Practices
We help feed millions of people every day, with a focus on offering families the choices they love.
McDonald's mission is to create delicious feel-good moments for everyone. We listen to our customers and evaluate our menu to identify ways to evolve our offerings while maintaining the great taste people know and love.
Our Recent Progress
Across our 20 major markets1:
- In 2023, 61% of Happy Meal Bundle Offerings met our Global Happy Meal Nutrition Criteria for balanced meals. These criteria mean that meals must have less than or equal to 600 calories, 10% of calories from saturated fat, 650 mg of sodium and 10% of calories from added sugar.
- In 2023, we maintained the removal of artificial flavors, added colors from artificial sources and artificial preservatives where feasible2 from Happy Meal Bundle Offerings in our 20 in-scope markets.
- 100% of Happy Meal nutrition information was available on all participating market websites and mobile apps as of Q1 2024.
- 99% of Happy Meal Bundles shown in advertisements on third-party media met our Global Nutrition Criteria in 2023.
- We featured water, milk or juice as the Happy Meal beverage, and fruit, vegetable or dairy items as one of the Happy Meal sides in 100% of the ads the Company directed to children.
- We featured water, milk or juice as the Happy Meal beverage, and fruit, vegetable or dairy items as one of the Happy Meal sides in 100% of the ads the Company directed to children.
See our latest Purpose & Impact Report on the Goal Performance & Reporting page, which highlights the significant progress made toward our Global Happy Meal Goals.
Our Strategy
We believe parents are looking for menu choices they can feel good about when it comes to feeding their kids. That’s why, in accordance with our values, we’ve been making balanced meals more accessible to families across the world by offering options that contribute to recommended food groups, such as fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy.
In 2018, we set five goals to evolve our Happy Meal over a five-year period. We published a report announcing our significant progress on those goals, across 20 major markets from 2018–2022. Read more in the independent report on our Global Happy Meal Goals (PDF – 1.8 MB).
As we move forward, we will continue monitoring performance of our 20 major markets against the following key measures of progress:
- Offer balanced meals.
- Maintain simplified ingredients.
- Be transparent with Happy Meal nutrition information.
- Market responsibly.
Informed by the last five years, we will no longer continue reporting on Happy Meal sales data. We will continue to encourage markets to leverage innovative marketing, by finding ways to offer and promote items that meet changing customer needs and preferences – building on the progress we’ve made with our Global Happy Meal Goals.
Learn more in our 2023 Purpose & Impact report (PDF – 6 MB).
Governance
Our nutrition and marketing strategies are overseen globally by our Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer and Global Chief Marketing Officer who, together, provide updates as needed to a cross-functional leadership team of senior executives from across the Company who are accountable for leading McDonald’s Impact Strategy and report to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). They are supported by representatives from Global Impact, Global Menu Strategy, Global Brand and Global Supply Chain.
We also partner externally with industry experts to help inform our strategy. For example, we have been working with the nonprofit Alliance for a Healthier Generation since 2013 on our nutrition efforts, including its role as a third-party advisor on the development and measurement of our Global Happy Meal Goals, now completed. We also work with Keybridge, an independent third party supporting us in data collection and verification of the metrics from our Global Happy Meal Goals.
Marketing Responsibly to Children
We’re proud of our work in responsible marketing to children. To help us address this topic at both a Company and an industry level, we participate in various local and regional pledges such as the EU Pledge and the U.S. Children’s Food & Beverage Advertising Initiative.
McDonald’s Global Marketing to Children Guidelines, which apply to all our markets, incorporate our commitments related to responsibly marketing to children.
Supporting Informed Decisions
We believe that clear nutrition information is key to helping consumers make informed choices. We publish nutrition information to customers in a variety of ways, depending on location, including via printed brochures; nutrition labeling through the use of QR codes on select food packaging; innovative use of our mobile apps and kiosks; offering online nutrition calculators; and displaying calories on menu boards.
We also leverage opportunities to positively influence customer choices through how items are presented on our menus. For example, in the U.K., we are using our technology platforms to encourage customers to choose more balanced options. Since 2017, we have shown lower-calorie soft drinks first on menu ordering screens. In the U.K., we changed the position of low- and no-sugar drink options on our menu ordering screens; we also saw a significant increase in sales of these drinks. In 2023, we made the switch to promote our grilled chicken offerings ahead of crispy chicken across kiosk and app platforms in the U.K. and have since seen a meaningful increase in the share of grilled wraps selected by customers.
Focus on Evolving Our Menu
McDonald's is listening to our customers and evolving our menu based on their changing tastes and preferences. Our menu offerings vary by market to accommodate local consumer preferences and expand customer choice, including by featuring options like salads, alternate protein choices (grilled chicken, McPlant, fish, vegetarian and vegan), fruits and vegetables to menus to expand customer choice.
In the U.K., we have had a defined nutrition strategy in place for several years. Since 2018, we have made 100 changes to ingredients across our menu and invested heavily in broadening our menu of balanced options. In 2019, we introduced cucumber sticks to the Happy Meal Offerings in the U.K. to complement our seasonal rotation of fruit and vegetable offerings, like pineapple, carrot sticks and melon. We review and update our U.K. Happy Meal menu regularly. As of January 2024, 68% of Happy Meal menu items offered in the U.K. are not high in fat, salt and sugar (non-HFSS), according to the U.K. Government’s Nutrient Profiling Model. Also as of January 2024, over 90% of core permanent menu items in the U.K., excluding promotional items, are under 500 calories each.
Since 2018, the following items served in the U.S. have been free of artificial preservatives, artificial flavors and added colors from artificial sources (except for pickles, which contain an artificial preservative):
- Hamburger
- Cheeseburger
- Double Cheeseburger
- McDouble® burger
- Quarter Pounder® with Cheese sandwich
- Double Quarter Pounder® with Cheese sandwich
- Big Mac® sandwich
In the U.S., we collaborate with the dairy industry and our supply chain to help us deliver more balanced options for younger guests. For example, in early 2020, we introduced a low-fat chocolate milk to our U.S. menu that contains 25% less sugar on average than other leading quick service restaurants’ low-fat chocolate milk.3
Footnotes
1 Our major markets include Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the U.K and the U.S. While initially included in these 20 markets, Russia was removed in 2022 following our exit from this market. We subsequently incorporated Mexico into the goal scope, as its progress was already being monitored and it allowed us to maintain tracking against 20 markets.
2 McDonald’s top priority is to ensure all items meet strict food safety and quality standards. “Where feasible” means that by removing an artificial preservative, there will not be a sacrifice in the food quality or safety standards, value or taste. In certain cases, it was determined that an artificial preservative was necessary to ensure the safety, quality, taste or value of the food.
3 14 g of sugar vs. average of 22 g at leading quick-service restaurants.
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