Jerome Watkins

Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Ore Ida

1000 Potato Street

Potato, Idaho 87665

Dear Mr. Watkins:

We value your company as one of the McDonalds suppliers. McDonalds often is compared to “three-legged stool”: one of them is a supplier, and another two are owner/operator and employees (McDonald Corporation, 2009). The top-notch quality of all three legs helps McDonalds bring everyday quality food to the 58 million customers’ tables around the world. One can easily recognize that detritions of quality of any of the three legs will adversely affect company’s reputation as a global brand. I am confident that you share my opinion, and your company is always committed to providing McDonald with quality products.

The purpose of my letter is to report a serious quality problem of one of your products. In the last six months, McDonald’s has received many customer complaints via letters, e-mail, and phone calls about the French fries that your company supplies us. These customers are from all regions of the United States. Customers have two main complaints: crispness and taste. They do not think the fries are as crisp as they have been and they say the taste is different.

McDonald suppliers realize that we place the customer’s experience at the core of everything we do. We aspire to protect the brand and maintain continuous success by creating an atmosphere where franchise owners, workers, and suppliers understand and embrace our core values. It is essential to remind you that even though we value our suppliers, we only work with suppliers, who share, respect, and promote our values. We expect them to have a customer-centric long-term view, and consistently meet our stringent standards of quality and performance (McDonald’s Corporation, 2009). Though we realize that our suppliers are independent businesses owners, but we consider them as our partners, and would like to strengthen partnership based on transparency, collaboration, and mutual respect. Nevertheless, we require that all suppliers and their facilities meet the standards and promote the principles of McDonald’s quality.

In this respect, I would like to emphasize on the fact that our fries are crispy and far from the ordinary; the secret lies in the harvesting of high quality potatoes that come from trusted suppliers. We invite you to visit Frank Martinez and Jenn Bunger’s farms in the U.S. that produces Russet Burbank, one of the potatoes used for our fries (Supplier Stories). It has a bright, white flash with high starch and low sugar content. Once cooked, the fries become lighter and fluffier, which makes the potato ideal for fries. You can also watch the video where Scot Gibson, one of the McDonald’s supply chain managers in Canada describes the entire procedure starting from the farm all the way to the fryer (Gizmodo). I believe the aforementioned information should be able to help you locate problem areas with your frozen French fries.

I am sure that you recognize there is a problem with your frozen French fries, and your company as well you personally will take immediate steps to locate and find the remedy of the problem. I want to assure you that McDonald still would like to purchase fries from your company; however, I also would like to get an assurance both from you and your company that future frozen French fries supplies would follow McDonald’s production guidelines.

It is worth mentioning that we care as much about the people who make our products as we do about our customers. This approach has made supplier code of conduct more robust, which has become a benchmark for many companies and associations engaged in arranging supply of food products (Supplier Code of Conduct).

Yours truly,

John Doe, McDonald’s purchasing agent

References

Gizmodo. (n.d.). How McDonald makes its delicious French fries. Retrieved from //gizmodo.com/5953061/how-mcdonalds-makes-its-delicious-french-fries

McDonald’s Corporation. (2009). Retrieved from //www.mcdonalds.at/presse/maps/McDCSR.pdf

Supplier Code of Conduct. (n.d.). Retrieved from //www.aboutmcdonalds.com/content/dam/AboutMcDonalds/Sustainability/Library/Supplier_Code_of_Conduct.pdf

Supplier Stories. (n.d.). Retrieved from //www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/supplierstories.html#