Joanna Guza:
U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action is proud to bring you content across the entire value chain. And today we're focusing in on McDonald's. I'm joined with Kendra Levine. She leads the US sustainability team at McDonald's. Kendra, can you first start off by sharing a little bit about your role and some of your team's efforts?

Kendra Levine:
Yeah, Um, so I lead our US sustainability team, which covers our restaurant sustainability work and our supply chain sustainability work. So on the restaurant side, some examples of that is our work around increasing recycling in our restaurants, food donation programs, reaching net zero emissions, so meaning carbon emissions coming from our restaurants, so like a climate goal. And then on the supply chain side, we're working also around climate, so reducing emissions within our supply chain. We're also working on things like, um, developing sustainable packaging, looking at water biodiversity, regenerative agriculture as some examples.

Joanna Guza:
And when we say sustainability, how is McDonald's defining sustainability?

Kendra Levine:
Ultimately, when we're talking about sustainability, we're thinking about it in the broadest sense of how we operate our business so that we can continue to operate long into the future. That's the highest level what that's looked like practically on the supply chain side, which I know is of most interest to our audience here is in 2014, for example, we set goals, um, by 2020 to sustainably source some of our key products like coffee packaging, fish, for example, where we said we were gonna source a hundred percent sustainably sourced products. And we met that for coffee, for the fiber, for our packaging, for palm oil for fish. And we also set goals for 2020 around beef and advancing, um, sustainable beef production by 2020. So that's in the past. And then going forward, what we're looking at more in the supply chain is we have one key public goal that we have to meet, which is a climate goal where we've committed to reduce our emissions and our supply chain, but also in our restaurants so that the emissions associated with our business are in line with planetary boundaries so that we're not contributing to the global temperatures rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is where we know we'll see those irreversible impacts of climate change.

Joanna Guza:
So again, what does that look like practically?

Kendra Levine:
It's really when we're talking about reducing emissions in our supply chain, we're looking at how we can support the adoption of practices that will either reduce emissions or will sequester carbon throughout the supply chain. So practices could be things like reducing, um, emissions that would come from fertilizer, so fertilizer optimization, or it could be sequestering carbon, which might come from cover crops or minimum tillage or crop rotation. Always with the idea that the farmer in the programs that we're working on, the farmer has the option around which practice they can adapt and there isn't a a dictating going on. It's really what will work for, um, the farmer in their region on their farm. But it's really through those types of practices that science has told us will reduce emissions or sequester carbon that we're looking to support throughout the supply chain.

Joanna Guza:
And how is McDonald's staying connected with the farmer?

Kendra Levine:
Yeah, so McDonald's does not own any farms. It doesn't even own facilities that produce the food that we sell within our restaurants. So really our work through agriculture is one, we connect with our direct suppliers who are the ones actually producing like the hamburger patty that will end up serving to our customers and our restaurants or who will actually cut the potato and turn them into a french fry. So we first engage with our suppliers and we're saying like, this is a vision that we have to create this resiliency, this sustainability into the future, and we wanna work with you on that. We wanna work with suppliers who have the same values as us, so they understand what we're looking for, they understand our expectations, and then we partner together to go even further upstream, ultimately to the agricultural level, which to the production level, which all of us depend on, to understand how we can support the adoption of those practices. So we're really working directly with our suppliers who engage implementation partners further upstream that engage producers with around technical assistance so that those production practices can be adapted.

Joanna Guza:
One comment that you made at  honor the harvest was, if we don't have farmers, we don't have food, we don't, we can't supply our customers. Can you kind of share what you feel you know, when you say that, and I, know that kind of hit home to a lot of farmers here.

Kendra Levine:
I mean ultimately the real name of the game for any company is how do you continue to assure supply going forward? I think the world has become much more aware of the importance of supply chain and ultimately how reliant we are on all the things that happen before raw materials ever get to our company. So in order for us to ensure that we can continue to serve our customers the products that they love, we have to be able to assure supply. We have to be able to assure that that food that's, that our suppliers can develop and then we can serve in our restaurants. So ultimately the resiliency of our business is based on the resiliency of agriculture. It's based off of the agricultural supply chains that develop the food that we serve in our restaurants.

Joanna Guza:
So Kendra, you were talking about some of the past goals you have now. Let's look ahead to the next five, 10 years. What are some of those sustainability goals? What do they look like for McDonald's?

Kendra Levine:
You know, we have a number of goals that are coming up in 2024 around animal health and welfare, which we in incorporate with as we think about sustainability as a whole for our business. Some around cage, three eggs, around pork housing, around chicken broiler welfare. So those are all coming up in 2024 and we are on track to meet all of them, which we're very excited about. And then in 2025, um, we'll be meeting our goal around packaging, which is to source all of our packaging from either certified sources, renewable sources, or recycled sources. Also part of our supply chain. So we'll be meeting that by the end of 2025. And then 2030 is when we have our first goal date to meet that climate target that I mentioned. So to reduce our emissions in line with planetary boundaries by 2030. And then we've committed to set a net zero emissions target as well. So another climate goal. And um, the goal date around that will be 2050.

Joanna Guza:
I know McDonald's is a partner with U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action. What benefit have you seen being a part of farm organizations?

Kendra Levine:
If ultimately our aim is to create resiliency throughout the supply chain, we can't develop strategies to understand how we can support that unless we understand what the needs are throughout the supply chain. Mm-hmm.  So there's extreme value to us to be participating, to be at the table with folks throughout the supply chain to understand what their needs are, what their challenges are, but also where the opportunities are.

And more than anything, a lot of what we talk about is, um, to create that, that shared understanding, not only for McDonald's to understand producers, but for producers to understand what restaurants and retail companies are facing as well, so that when they hear of a goal that a company set that really impacts their supply chain, that they don't feel like, well, why, what does this have to do with me? That they don't feel finger pointing. So a lot of the value I think for these, um, convenings is for everyone to come to the table, be really transparent around what their opportunities are, what their constraints are, what pressures they're facing, so that there can be mutual understanding. And then from there we can develop and talk about solutions together.

Joanna Guza:
You all are probably hearing so many voices, whether that is from the farming community or just your general customers that might not have a farming background. Are you being careful when you listen to your customer's voices that it's still sustainable, uh, economically sustainable for our farmers to keep farming the way they are and not have to change the practices because of someone that didn't grow up on a farm or doesn't have a farming background?

Kendra Levine:
Yeah, you know, a lot of our goals really are outcome-based. So as I mentioned, the ones that we have, um, like for this climate goal, ultimately the goal is to reduce emissions. How that happens, there's all sorts of flexibility into what practice will actually lead to there. And as I said before, the programs that we're invested in are ones that offer optionality where the producer can, has this whole suite of practices that a, a technical advisor will share with them, and then they select what, which ones will actually work for their land. So ultimately we're trying to look at, again, outcomes. So I've talked about climate and carbon quite a bit, but we wanna wrap in a real focus on water and biodiversity as well, but stay outcome focused and not be dictating practices.

Joanna Guza:
So the farmers that might be listening to this podcast, they might feel intimidated to talk to bigger brands. What advice do you have for them to reach out to bigger brands to kind of like maybe open up their farm and kind of share some of their practices? What advice would you have for them to contact other bigger brands?

Kendra Levine:
I think what's great is that there are a number of organizations that exist that bring all players throughout the supply chain together, throughout the value chain together. So USFRA, certainly one of them. We're part of a number of organizations that do the same, um, as well with always with kind of different topics in mind, but like we're part of the US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. There's field to market, there's the ecosystem services, market consortium, a lot of those represented here as well. So they're, if a producer is interested in, in engaging with corporations, I think doing that through these many avenues that already exist, it's a pretty easy way to do that. They're regular convenings, um, that have been multiple times throughout a year, and it's very easy to sit at the same table and strike up a conversation and again, create that shared understanding.

Joanna Guza:
And would you say it's an impactful interaction when it happens?

Kendra Levine:
It is for me, and when I've talked to producers, I've heard the same thing. I, I used to. I thought that there was more of a learning curve on my side, um, and that I got a lot of value at from it. But in talking to producers at some of these other meetings that I've mentioned, I've heard from them, you know, I had no idea what you were facing, what you're hearing from your customers, from your investors, from stakeholders that are, that are sharing their desires, um, and pressures with you. And now I understand why you're saying what you're saying. And that made me really happy, that, that there really was a shared learning, um, across the board. And I think ultimately what that creates is a foundation of trust that we can have productive conversations from.

Joanna Guza:
Building trust was definitely a theme wrapped around Honor the Harvest this year. We've been talking with Kendra Levine, she's the director of the US Sustainability team at McDonald's. Now, if you're a farmer listening to this podcast and you'd like to get connected with a company, please reach out to us. You can email me at podcast@usfraonline.org. Until next time, I'm Joanna Guza for Farm Food Facts.