Collaborative Effort from Four Key Suppliers: McDonald’s China has launched the Hubei Smart Food Industrial Park, a joint initiative with its four major suppliers: Bimbo QSR, XH Supply Chain, Tyson Foods Inc, and Zidan. The park aims to boost McDonald’s brand development in central and western China.
With a combined investment of CN¥1.5 billion ($206 million), the park is projected to produce over 30,000 tons of meat products, nearly 300 million pieces of bread, 30 million pastries, and two billion packaging items annually. It features a 25,000 square meter automated cold storage and dry goods warehouse, which enhances logistics efficiency by reducing the time for goods to enter the warehouse by 90%. McDonald’s China stated that the park will significantly improve supply efficiency and stability for its restaurants, ensuring the delivery of fresh, safe, and high-quality meals to more customers.
Advancing The Smart Supply Chain
The Hubei Smart Food Industrial Park is a milestone in McDonald’s China’s smart supply chain development. Utilizing advanced digital platform technologies, McDonald’s China and its partners have established a next-generation smart supply chain.
In the park’s factories, interconnected systems facilitate seamless information exchange between suppliers and McDonald’s China, enabling traceability of food materials and production. These systems also allow for real-time monitoring of production efficiency. Algorithm engines help optimize production schedules.
Automated warehouses in the park analyze inventory and supplier capacity in real time, enabling automatic replenishment based on demand forecasts. Using IoT, navigation, and big data technologies, the cold chain transportation system provides full visibility, ensuring real-time tracking of product types, quantities, environmental conditions, and transport status, thereby maintaining food safety and quality at every step.
Upon arrival at McDonald’s restaurants, digital tools manage inventory intelligently, monitoring stock levels and expiration dates in real time to reduce food safety risks and waste.
Innovative Logistics Solutions
The park features an automated smart warehouse with full-process automation. This includes a pallet stacking system, box multi-channel storage system, intelligent robotic arms, and automated mobile robots (AMRs) working together to achieve efficient sorting and operations. This setup creates a high-efficiency, zero-difference digital warehouse operation solution.
The smart warehouse also supports RFID and other IoT technology upgrades led by McDonald’s China, enhancing traceability efficiency and ensuring real-time data tracking throughout the process, from raw materials to cold chain distribution. This allows McDonald’s to continually reduce inventory burden, improve operational efficiency, and deliver safer, higher-quality meals.
“Our rapidly growing business demands a more extensive distribution network for McDonald’s China’s supply chain. The smart supply chain enhances our efficiency and resilience, bringing us closer to our customers and communities,” said McDonald’s China CFO, Huang Hongfei. “In the future, we will continue to deepen cooperation with our supplier partners, using innovation to drive transformation, so more customers can enjoy McDonald’s deliciousness faster and better.”
Last year, McDonald’s announced an agreement with global investment firm Carlyle to buy back its minority ownership stake in McDonald’s businesses in China, Hong Kong, and Macau, increasing its stake by 48%.