Tuesday, February 20, 2018

McDonald's, But Not Your Child's Elementary School, Removes Chocolate Milk From Their Menu

Not sure if you caught this news release last week. It detailed McDonald's announcement that they'll be overhauling their standard Happy Meal offering in a bid to, "support families".

Part of that "support" (I'll come back to the word, I promise), is ensuring,
"at least 50 percent or more of the Happy Meals listed on menus (restaurant menu boards, primary ordering screen of kiosks and owned mobile ordering applications) in each market will meet McDonald's new Global Happy Meal Nutrition Criteria of less than or equal to 600 calories; 10 percent of calories from saturated fat; 650mg sodium; and 10 percent of calories from added sugar"
And to meet those goals cheeseburgers will only be available by special request, a kids; fry size (smaller than current small) will be developed, bottled water will be a featured beverage option, and chocolate milk will only be available by special request.

Though I'm certainly happy that McDonald's Happy Meals will generally be lower in calories and sugar, here's the rub. While the rollout of this initiative speaks to health, corporations never make changes that they think will hurt their bottom lines. This is not an indictment - corporations aren't social service organizations - their goals are profit driven, and McDonald's are no exception as evidenced by their press release's first line,
"Today, McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) announced an expanded commitment to families, supporting the company's long-term global growth plan by leveraging its reach to impact children's meals"
They hope that these changes will bring in more families more often for more meals at McDonald's, which is good for their investors, but probably not so much so for public health, even without chocolate milk.

But you know which organization's goals aren't profit driven? Your children's elementary schools', yet their chocolate milk programs continue with no end in sight, and not just for a sometimes treat, but daily. If you wouldn't serve kids who didn't eat fruit, daily pie, you might want to rethink their daily chocolate milk.

Motivation aside, it's odd to see McDonald's being more proactive than our kids' schools on this file.