Thanks to omy and McDonald’s, I got invited along with a group of bloggers for the McDonalds’ Open Kitchen Tour last Saturday. Let’s just say I was mightily impressed!
I’ve always known that McDonald’s maintains a high level of standard for its food and production process, but through the tour, I got a much better understanding of how its entire operation works. It was definitely a very interesting experience going behind to the kitchen of the world-famous food chain that fed so many people around the globe, and my personal fav food of all time.
Speaking of the Open Kitchen Tour, I’ve been wanting to sign up my children to go it because it sounded so fun. But previously, there was a age criteria for the tour and only children above 8 or 10 years old get to register. Plus, they stopped the kitchen tours for quite a while for restructuring. It’s good news that the McDonalds’ Kitchen Tour is back, and this time round, NO AGE LIMIT FOR THE KIDS! How awesome that is. But of course, due to the fact that the kitchen handles potentially dangerous objects and stuffs like hot oil, they do encourage parents to carry in arms kids below age of four for safety reasons. =) The McDonalds’ Open Kitchen Tour will restart next week, and you can sign up via http://www.mcdonalds.com.sg/. =)
Now for an exclusive preview to the tour I attended! =D
They served everyone a welcome drink each. =) Great, I rushed to the event and felt very thirsty! LOL
The Open Kitchen Ambassadors who were so friendly and smiley! We were divided into two groups, and the lady on the left was my group’s ambassador. Can you believe she’s a mother of three?! =D
My group started off with the tour of the storeroom.. Everything was neat and tidy. Even for storage, McDonald’s has their own set of procedures. All shelves are above ground and away from the walls to allow ventilation. They also use the first-in-first-out concept for their logistics management.
Everything’s neatly labelled. Heavy stuffs are always stored nearest to the floor.
I was most impacted when the ambassador shared that McDonald’s will only work with suppliers who do not undertake any activities that’s detrimental to the environment, cause harm to endangered species etc. Their environmental-consciousness is really amazing. As a mega organisation, they understand that they have a responsibility to protect the environment. Their corporate social responsibility is really admirable.
Next, we visited the freezer storeroom, where they keep all their frozen products. Freezing cold inside… Brrrr….
Everything’s neatly categorised and stored.
Ha! Didn’t know my favourite hotcakes are frozen?!
Next up, we visited the Crew Room, which was a rest area for all McDonald’s crew. This is also the place for them to catch up on company news, photographs of crew outings and news on upcoming new products etc.
McDonald’s has upgrading courses for their staff, and majority of their managers actually rose up from crews. You can imagine how many years of experience many of them have in this organisation! I’m sure you’ve also heard of the Hamburger University, which is set up by McDonalds and where managers are sent to get their University degrees. =) Impressive.
Finally, we came to the front counters. Even the front counters are uniformly designed in such a way that everytime you step into McDonald’s, you will know what to expect. There is always a staff taking your order and collecting payment, while a runner will go gather your orders together. This shortens the waiting time for the customers and ensures that all orders are delivered fast and fresh.
And, finally our tour reached the KITCHEN! This was definitely the highlight of the tour, as everyone wanted to know what really goes into our favourite french fries and fillet-O-fish. Haha!
Detailed instructions on how to assemble the breakfast muffins. =) Haha, reminds me of an IPAD game I play… =P
Abundance of buns! Different buns are used for different burgers… Sesame seed buns for Mc Chicken, smooth round buns for fillet-O-fish and long sandwich buns for Mcgrill. =D
Many of us would already know that McDonald’s has a very rigorous cooking procedure. Every single procedure is documented and adhered to strictly to ensure the same standard and quality every time. For french fries, there is a machine to ‘load fries’ so that the same amount of fries get fried at one go. The temperature and time for cooking is also preset so that every fry come out looking exactly the same.
The fries are cooked from frozen state!
Ooooooh don’t we all LOVE McDonald’s fries??! Crispy on the outside and filled with soft potatoes on the inside!
There is a different drying compartment for different kinds of meat because different meats require different cooking time and temperatures. It’s all preset as well. =D
McDonald’s uses a ‘Make As You Order’ system, whereby the burgers are assembled only when an order has been received. This is to ensure that every single order is freshly produced!
Special orders are no problem now as they are already customised to what you like during the assembly stage.
See the different coloured tongs? They are used to pick up different types of meat. I thought that was just being redundant until the ambassador explained what it was for. Customers who don’t take beef would certainly not like it if the chicken patty in their burger was picked up using a pair of tongs that had touched beef before. This is great customer service really – Putting the customers’ needs FIRST!
You can also see on the left of the photo, different compartments labelled with green text. Those compartments contain meats for eg Spicy Chicken for the burgers, and if the text is in green, it means they can be used to assemble into burgers. However, once the meats have been left inside those compartments past the acceptable shelf life, the text turns to red, warning the staff that it’s not suitable to be served to the customers. Awesome yeh? =D
Ooh la la! Freshly fried apple pies!
Cute, bright yellow containers for staff to drink from. =D Too cute to miss a shot.
Pretty interesting tour, I would say… and I learnt so much. If there is something I could bring back with me, it would be the spirit of excellence McDonald’s has, in every area of its operations and always putting their customers’ needs and the environmental needs as their priorities. They have so many areas that organisations can learn from!
At the end of the tour, we were served with all the McDonald’s wonderful food and desserts. Heee… and they also very kindly gave us vouchers to redeem free food on our next visit! Love McDonald’s! Wooohooooo!
If you’ve got kids, I think this would be an interesting tour to bring them to. I am going to sign up for my kids for sure! =D
