{"id":622951,"date":"2026-10-07T04:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T04:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/622951\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T04:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T04:56:18","slug":"nz-arable-push-for-local-mcdonalds-buns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/622951\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ arable push for local McDonald\u2019s buns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Talks are underway between McDonald\u2019s New Zealand and the country\u2019s arable industry to see if there is a way for the restaurant giant to use locally grown grain for its burger buns.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s currently sources its grain from imported Australian wheat. It is processed in Auckland for bun making.<\/p>\n

FAR general manager of business operations Ivan Lawrie said that with the New Zealand Grown Grains website and certification programme now in full flight, McDonald\u2019s and its suppliers have a genuine opportunity to make true on their claim to support NZ growers.<\/p>\n

Lawrie said the arable industry has tried \u2013 unsuccessfully \u2013 to engage with McDonald\u2019s in the past on getting it to use NZ-grown grain and is hopeful this engagement will lead to better success.<\/p>\n

One of the barriers in the past has been economics. McDonald\u2019s can get Australian-grown wheat landed in Auckland for a lower price than locally produced wheat.<\/p>\n

At $645 a tonne for New Zealand wheat, Lawrie calculated it would cost around 3.4 cents excluding GST to make a 66-gram bun containing 40g of flour, or 52.6g of wheat.<\/p>\n

For a $6.52 Quarter Pounder burger, that 3.4 cents of the grower\u2019s wheat would equate to 0.5% of the value of the burger, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual savings are almost negligible in terms of the end product that they are selling. There is less than 4c of wheat contained in a hamburger bun.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the price of wheat went up 50% for the grower, that would mean in the hamburger bun it would go from 4c to 6c.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no issue with quality or consistency of supply.<\/p>\n

The industry produces around 100,000 tonnes of milling wheat a season, which could increase if less feed wheat was produced, he said.<\/p>\n

Having McDonald\u2019s as a customer would be a huge boost for an industry low on confidence and struggling with profitability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could give surety to a group of growers that year in, year out, the demand for that particular wheat will be there, and arrange some long-term pricing arrangements that satisfied both parties, that would mean a huge amount to our growers because that would put them in a position where they are not relying on the volatility of the market all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The cost of the bun, which has little effect on the end value of the hamburger, would increase a growers\u2019 income by 50%, he said.<\/p>\n

It would also add further credence to McDonald\u2019s claim to use locally made products.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would complete the story, and we would be able to certify their products under the New Zealand Grown Grains certification trademark.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Time: 2 minutes Talks are underway between McDonald\u2019s New Zealand and the country\u2019s arable industry to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-622951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}