The Walton Family Foundation invested in a Honduran lobster fishery, targeting its sustainability and touting its success. Ten years later, thousands of workers have been injured or killed.
October 4, 2010
On the 21st of September the Franco-Belgian fast-food chain Quick took the plunge, selling a certified organic burger– with Swiss cheese and locally-raised meat– for a cost of 2.50 euros each, 43 percent more than the traditional Quick burger. The burger will be available for eight weeks to measure demand. The company claims that it has worked for a year to procure the quantity of organic meat needed to fulfill the eight weeks of service. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the organic patty and onions are cut square instead of round, differentiating it from the non-organic version.
It is not surprising that the French market is moving in this direction. The government recently announced an additional six million euros would go towards helping farmers transition to certified organic agriculture, which can be costly for the farmer and takes five years in France. The French government has also set a goal of converting 20% of French agriculture to organic by 2020. It seems fast-food restaurants are seeing the handwriting on the wall.
While fast-food chains like Chipotle have staked their reputation on buying antibiotic and hormone-free meat stateside, and locally based fast-food chains like BurgerVille in the Pacific Northwest have focused on local, sustainable food and practices, larger chains like McDonald’s and Burger King have yet to acknowledge this market in any significant way. If American fast-food chains went organic, would you be more likely to buy their food? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.
December 6, 2023
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I'm a single parent. I love my work. My son doesn't like most of the food I like to cook. So I don't cook much. I would love to be able to pick up burgers (and burritos and chicken) and know they were healthy and doing right by the planet.
I eat at Elevation a few times a month. Would I do the same if McDonalds offered a local/organic menu? Perhaps - it would depend on how tasty it was, and if it was genuinely as sustainable as advertised.
If we want the ideal to be all places serving local, sustainable, organic foods, then it's necessary to walk the walk and support companies that make the change. Otherwise, there will be no incentive for anyone to make the change.
Besides, fast food chains make their money by selling a LOT of food at a very low profit margin. It's hard to find thousands of pounds of grass-fed local beef every couple of weeks. It just doesn't exist. Economies of scale are what built fast food just like they built box stores. It's hard to translate that into local, sustainable food.
That being said, I don't like deep-fat-frying in my house and lord do I love french fries. So if there was a place that used local organic produce? I'd probably eat there quite a bit.
I'm not a huge burger fan, myself -- but when I do need a quick bite, that's where I go. I think to really get better food out there, it's essential to have alternatives at all levels -- so I think it's a great trend to encourage.
No.