Response by McDonalds UK to The Obesity Steering Groups inquiry into Obesity

McDonalds Restaurants UK welcomes the opportunity to submit written evidence to the Academys
Obesity Groups inquiry into tackling obesity.

We recognise that public health issues like obesity are complex matters that cannot be solved by
governments, businesses or individuals alone. However, we are proud to play a role and would take
this opportunity to inform you about how McDonalds approaches business in the UK.

At the very centre of everything we do, is our food. We use high quality ingredients, sourced as
locally as possible to serve good, tasty food. We believe that our customers need to be given
information about sourcing and nutrition in digestible forms to allow customers to make informed
choices.

We have a long history of providing our customers with a range of options to find out more about our
food including printed nutrition information on our packaging, on the back of trayliners and on our
website. Under the Governments Responsibility Deal, we led the Quick Service sector in putting
calorie information on all of our menu boards.

We have made extensive changes to our menu over recent years adding greater choice for our
customers. For example, we have introduced porridge, salads and wraps. We have been selling
carrot sticks and fruit bags for a number of years and have increased our range of non-carbonated
drinks. We use semi-skimmed milk in our coffee.

McDonalds is committed to encouraging smart eating and invest advertising spend on 5 a day
messaging for children. We also work hard to engage children to make positive food choices. By
using licensed characters such as Shrek responsibly we know that we can encourage children to
enjoy fruit and vegetables.

At the beginning of May we launched a new generation of soft drink, Fruitizz. Fruitizz is a fizzy fruit
juice drink that will help parents give children one of their five-a-day while still appealing to children.
The drink blends 60% fruit juice from grapes, apples and raspberries with natural sparkling water. We
specifically wanted to create a drink for families that is sweetened naturally and contains no artificial
colours or flavourings. This has taken us 3 years to develop but our commitment to increasing choice
for parents has meant that we now have a product which we believe both parents and children will be
happy with.

We have also invested in a programme of recipe reformulation to deliver real benefits to our
customers, for example reducing the salt in the Chicken McNuggets by 30% and reducing salt in our
fries by a quarter. These changes dont just happen overnight, we invest both time and money in
testing changed or new products with our customers. We have made successful and sustainable
changes to our menus through reformulation by making small but important steps and taking our
customers with us resulting in real net gain. We do face technological challenges around the
reformulation of some of our ingredients such as bread, cheese and certain sauces. We have
completely removed hydrogenated trans-fats across our entire menu.
The following is a sample of recent changes to our menu driven by reformulation:

Our average childrens meal now contains 46% less salt than it did in 2000
79% of our Happy Meal menu is now classified as not high in fat, salt or sugar according to
the Governments Nutrient Profiling Model
Our average Happy Meal sold in the 2011 contained 31% less sugar compared to 2000
In 2011 we reduced the saturated fat content of our milkshakes by 34%
In June we will be reducing the amount of salt used in the preparation of our Filet-o-Fish
product
We have reduced the salt in our fries by 50%. We believe in giving our customers choice and
the customer can ask for their fries not to be salted.

Marketing and advertising is an essential part of any businesss strategy but we fully understand the
importance of responsible marketing. We fully commit to the UK Codes of Practice on advertising to
children, ensuring that we act within both the spirit and the letter of the Committee of Advertising
Practice and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice Codes. We are also signatories to the
the EU Pledge, a voluntary initiative by leading food and beverage companies to change food and
beverage advertising to children under the age of twelve in the European Union.

We advertise to children only food and drink items that are not classified as High in Fat, Salt or Sugar
HFSS based on scoring criteria set by the FSA. 79% of our childrens Happy Meal combinations are
not classified as HFSS. These include some of our most popular items such as Chicken McNuggets,
Hamburger, Fish Fingers and French Fries. Just as the contents of our Happy Meals have evolved,
we have broadened out the promotional aspect to include different items. For example, at the
beginning of this year, we launched a Happy Meal promotion in partnership with the publisher, Harper
Collins, which saw around 9 million Michael Morpurgo books reach our young customers hands.

The launch of the inquiry was accompanied by a raft of criticism around food companies sponsoring
events. Particular criticism was levied at McDonalds sponsorship of the 2012 Olympics.
Sponsorship is essential to the successful staging of the Olympics and as a London 2012 sponsor, we
are using our catering and customer service expertise to provide high quality British food, and help
train the 70,000 volunteers that will be needed to make the Games a success.

While we anticipate serving only one in ten meals on the Olympic Park through our restaurants, we
have used our sponsorship to help capture the imagination of our customers and get them into the
spirit of the Games. By the time the Olympic flame is extinguished, we will have completed two
promotions designed to get young people interested in sport. The McDonalds Mascotathon
encouraged children to measure the amount of activity they do on a daily basis with an activity
counter and record it on a dedicated website. We know that healthy competition will inspire children to
get involved in the programme. The activity counters were available in Happy Meals, over the counter
(without purchasing a Happy Meal), and by post.

The second promotion is designed to encourage children to try new sports by including an Olympic
sports voucher with each Happy Meal sold. We have done a similar promotion in the past in
collaboration with the British Swimming Association and have had a high voucher redemption rate,
our analysis shows that over 33,000 swimming sessions were used by children.

In a similar spirit, we are proud of our long-standing support for local community football clubs. We
are entering our tenth year as the Official Community Partner of the four UK football associations, and
during that time we have created over 25,000 new football coaches and helped raise standards in
over 6,000 local clubs. More than 780 of our restaurants are now twinned with over 850 local football
teams across the UK.

The issue of tackling obesity remains complicated and McDonalds will continue to play its part. We
look forward to hearing the recommendations of the inquiry and seeing how academia, HCPs,
government and industry can better work together.

Allison Bartlett, Head of Public Affairs, McDonalds Restaurants UK,