McDonald’s Features Farmers In New Marketing Program

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Local farmers’ markets may be the hot trend right now, but McDonald’s believes that U.S. consumers are becoming more interested in where their food comes from, regardless of the size of the farm. The QSR giant last week launched a national “field-to-fork” ad campaign that emphasizes the sources of the food it serves.

The new campaign features farmers like Frank Martinez, pictured here.

“This is the first time we’ve done a ‘source’ campaign featuring farmers,” Ashlee Yingling, a McDonald’s spokesperson, told SN.

“We had a campaign a few years ago called, ‘What We’re Made Of,’ but it focused on the products themselves.”

The goal of the earlier campaign was to make it clear that the food McDonald’s serves is not heavily processed, Yingling said. In the “source” campaign that kicked off on Jan. 2, farmers and ranchers who supply McDonald’s are featured in ad videos.

One shows potato farmer Frank Martinez sitting amidst a huge mound of potatoes just harvested from his land. As Martinez bites into one of the potatoes, a loud crunch is heard.

Then, Martinez, facing the camera, says, “They’re good now but even better as fries.” Later in the video commercial, he says, “Only the best potatoes in the world can make world-famous fries. Mine make the cut.”

He was photographed on his farm near Warren, Wash.

Other suppliers featured in the campaign include lettuce farmer Dirk Giannini in Salinas Valley, Calif., and beef producer Steve Foglesong at Black Gold Cattle Co. in Illinois.

Giannini, a fourth-generation farmer, who’s been farming lettuce for 14 years, is shown in a field of lettuce.

“We have beautiful weather and soil for growing. We’re stewards of the land,” he says. In the video that follows, he points out how fresh his lettuce is when it arrives at its destination.

“In a matter of days, our lettuce is harvested, triple-rinsed and delivered to McDonald’s.”

Foglesong says, in another commercial, “I’m what you’d call a beef snob.  Fact is, you can’t get great taste without great quality.”

The decision to launch the “field-to-fork” ad campaign was made a year ago.

“We were aware that consumers want to know more about where their food comes from,” Yingling said.

An ongoing “listening tour,” which McDonald’s launched last summer to source ideas and opinions directly from their customers, confirmed that a growing number of diners want to know more about the food they buy and where it comes from. 

“What we heard during the ‘listening tour’ did reinforce what we already knew,” Yingling said.

McDonald’s is not the first company to feature farmers or ranchers in its ads. In fact, several food companies have done so during the past few years.

Chicago-based food industry consulting group Technomic recently included consumers’ quest for more information about their food in a list of leading restaurant industry trends.

“I think McDonald’s is just continuing to be the big leader, in things important to consumers,” Ron Paul, Technomic’s president and chief executive officer, told SN last week.

“They’re not the first to do this, but they’re big, so the industry has to listen.”

Paul pointed out that Chipotle was one of the first restaurant chains to do “source” advertising.

“Even some of the grocers such as Bristol Farms have done it,” Paul said.

The social aspects of growing and raising food — such as responsible farming and humane animal treatment — are getting increasing attention among mainstream consumers.

“This move on McDonald’s part is positive and important because it will raise everybody’s awareness — supermarkets’ as well as competing restaurant chains’ awareness,” Paul said.

“This just reestablishes that this is a serious consumer issue.”