Paris, March1, 2022 – Pioneers in signing the industry’sfirst three-year contract in 2012, McDonald’s France and its partners in the wheat supply chain—the Valfrance, Boisseaux, and Puiseaux cooperatives, as well as Grands Moulins de Paris and BIMBO QSR—will look back on this decade of collaboration at the 2022 International Agricultural Show.
The Valfrance, Puiseaux, and Boisseaux cooperatives, along with Grands Moulins de Paris—the long-standing miller for BIMBO QSR and McDonald’s France—have once again extended their multi-year supply agreement, effective starting with the 2022 harvest. This agreement covers 16,900 tons of wheat purchased annually (Recommended Wheat Varieties (VRM) for milling, known as “strong” wheat and “bread-making” VRM), equivalent to 13,000 tons of flour, which represents more than 40% of the annual flour requirements needed for BIMBO QSR to produce buns for McDonald’s France.
Based on a fixed price, this contract includes an adjustment clause that links the price of durum wheat to the IPAMPA index (Index of Purchase Prices for Agricultural Inputs); this is done to best reflect changes in farmers’ production costs.
As a result, this new agreement provides all stakeholders in the sector with visibility regarding future harvests, enabling producers in particular to secure their markets and plan new investments in their operations.
The continued implementation of this initiative has led to several advancements within McDonald’s France’s wheat supply chain, notably the inclusion of CRC® wheat in its supply starting with the 2019 harvest. In 2021, Bimbo QSR also switched 100% of its production for McDonald’s France to Label Rouge flour. This means that more than 700 million buns are produced annually using 32,000 tons of Label Rouge wheat flour, representing approximately 20% of France’s total production.
Christophe Blaise, CEO of BIMBO QSR, said:“We are celebrating more than 30 years of partnership and 10 years of multi-year contracts with McDonald’s France. This is further proof that long-term relationships benefit every link in the supply chain. By securing the income of our partner producers, this contracting model demonstrates its relevance even more today in the face of the price fluctuations we are all experiencing.”
“We are proud to have been committed for 10 years to this multi-year contract, which helps raise the profile of our producers. The high standards of McDonald’s France’s wheat supply chain drive us to collectively strive for ever-higher quality and greater sustainability. “Our involvement in McDonald’s France’s pilot project on agroforestry and regenerative agriculture is further proof of this,” adds Laurent Vittoz, CEO of VALFRANCE.
