My college roommate and his family own a meat packing plant. A few years ago I ran into him as we were both going into a McDonald’s.

We sat down and talked while we were eating our respective breakfasts. As we were finishing up he said that he had lost track of time and he had to rush. McDonald’s inspectors were coming in that day.

I said that it was great because he had a contract with such a big company.

He replied that it was a great thing for his company. They buy all of the best meat and pay top dollar but they came in once a month to inspect for everything from top grade meat to cleanliness and refrigeration. Also that they were a pain in the butt about every bit of it.

I never turned up my nose at McDonald’s again.

My family has been involved in sourcing the cows for McDonald’s for decades. I use the word “cows” as opposed to “cattle” because almost all of the meat comes from dairy beef. Now dairy beef is not a bad thing if you make hamburgers out of it and it is very lean. Growing up on a beef farm I was raised on premium ground chuck. The texture is totally different. Our burgers would easily fall apart.

However, you do not want that in the fast food industry. Dairy beef creates a “chewier” patty. Processed thin, it is perfect for McDonald’s and it is 100% lean beef.

As cattle buyers, our family has had their fair share of tricks pulled on them. Unscrupulous sellers may give a cow an injection right before she enters the sale barn and we would buy her thinking that she was just a cow that had quit giving milk.

Since there is a time period between the sale barn purchase and the cow’s arrival at the processing plant, the ailment would inevitably show up and she would be rejected by McDonald’s. We, of course, had to bear the cost of the rejected animal. McDonald’s was strict!

Additionally, all the cattle are brought to a central source where they are butchered and processed to provide a more “generic” flavor as opposed to one particular breed’s distinguishing taste (if that makes sense). In other words, all the patties taste the same.

Though I do not eat at McDonald’s very often, I am not afraid of their meat. I recently read an article on Pollock (the fish in Filet-O-Fish). McDonald’s only uses PREMIUM Pollock! And their tartar sauce is one of the top-rated in the world for flavor! Crazy. Try the Filet-O-Fish with added bacon – game changer!!

Additionally, as requested, this answer concerns the source of beef (what the burger is made of) for the US market.

I worked in a meat packing plant in Des Moines, Iowa, the summer of 1975. Every so often near the end of the shift we would get beef carcasses that were intended be deboned and entirely ground into ground beef. There would be six dairy cow carcasses followed by a fat steer or heifer carcass. The dairy cows were very lean and were huge. The fat carcass was included to bring up the fat content of the ground beef.

I was told that it was headed for fast food hamburger processing factory to be made into hamburger patties. The workers didn’t know which restaurant chain it t was going to. Likely it was not McDonald’s as I believe they have been vertically integrated for a long time. McDonald’s might have a similar process.