CHICAGO (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp., the leading global food service retailer, said on Wednesday it had exceeded its 2004 goal of tracing 10 percent of all U.S. beef purchases back to the farms where the animals originated.
Tracing U.S. cattle back to their birthplace has become a greater issue since the discovery of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003.
"We do set the targets ourselves," Maura Havenga, senior vice president for North America Supply Chain Management at McDonald's Corporation, said at a Reuters Food Summit.
"We have small targets set, it is kind of an evolution, for 2005, 2006, 2007. It is something again that is very internally driven. It is something that we are trying to challenge ourselves and challenge our suppliers with," she said.
McDonald's is the largest single buyer of United States beef, buying nearly one billion pounds a year.
"We want to work neck-and-neck with the government, as well as helping them increase traceability in the U.S." Havenga added.
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