Supporting American Dairy Farmers with Dairy Management Inc.

Milk has long been an addition to coffee and specialty beverages at McDonald’s—that’s why it’s so important where we source this key ingredient.

Beyond coffee beans, McDonald’s USA is proud to work with US dairy farmers. By 2020, nearly all dairy products served in the U.S. will come from farms that participate in the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program, which strives to hold its members to high standards of animal care, and environmental and antibiotic stewardship.

We collaborate with Dairy Management Inc. to foster relationships with the American farmers who supply milk, cream, butter and cheese every day to the more than 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S.

“We’re so honored to partner with McDonald’s to bring our dairy products from nearly 40,000 dairy farmers across the U.S. to their millions of customers daily," said Barb O'Brien, president of Dairy Management Inc.

The collaboration was most recently showcased at a unique event in Chicago – the McCafé Sustainability Journey – where consumers had the opportunity to experience a South American coffee farm firsthand. Two Colombian coffee farmers and one dairy farmer from Illinois, Amy Hildebrandt, were on site to talk about their farming practices and supplying the coffee and milk that go into McCafé beverages.

“I was proud to be part of this event, and I’m thrilled to supply milk to McDonald’s every day,” said Hildebrandt, who owns an 800-cow farm on the Illinois-Wisconsin border with her husband and brother in law.

“We know that people have questions about and want to understand where their food comes from,” said Barb O’Brien. “The recent event in Chicago was a great opportunity for people to personally meet a farmer and to learn more about the dairy farming story behind the McCafé beverages they enjoy.”

Beyond maintaining the high standards of dairy quality and taste, we've made huge strides in recent years to evolve a number of our menu items that include dairy.

• We removed Sorbic Acid, an artificial preservative, from our American cheese which contains no artificial preservatives, flavors or added colors from artificial sources.
• Happy Meal menus across the U.S. offer reformulated Yoplait® Go-GURT® Low Fat Strawberry Yogurt. Made exclusively for McDonald’s, it now contains no artificial preservatives and still no artificial flavors or added colors from artificial sources.
• We completed a transition to vanilla soft serve made without artificial flavors, colors or preservatives in 2017.