McDonald’s has put items including burger patties, bacon, and sausage on controlled allocation. That means the company’s supply chain will send restaurants meat shipments based on calculated demand across the system, as opposed to the usual practice of management ordering the amount believed will be needed.
This is a temporary change of how restaurants get their supply of beef and pork, as the U.S. faces potential meat shortages due to slaughterhouse closures.
The new approach does not necessarily mean that McDonald’s is facing shortages, but instead that the company is more closely monitoring and managing meat supply across the U.S. as the situation changes on a daily and hourly basis.
Supply shortages at this time is not the reason, but a caution that distribution centers went on managed supply and restaurants on controlled allocation as of Wednesday.
McDonald’s CEO Kempczinski said on Thursday in a call with investors that McDonald’s has not had a single supply chain break globally. However, he acknowledged in an interview with CNBC that the current state of the meat processing industry in the U.S. is “concerning.”
“We are monitoring it, literally, hour by hour,” Kempczinski said.
