McDonald's Free Range Eggs | McDonald's Ireland

Our eggs

Every egg we cook at breakfast is Irish and free-range.

<h2>Our eggs</h2>

Free range hens walking through a hedgerow

Free-range eggs

You might think our free-range eggs are the most essential ingredient in our McMuffin®. Well actually, our most essential ingredient is our Irish farmers, and the ones that supply our tasty free-range eggs from Irish farms that are approved by Bord Bia .

We care for our egg farms

Our commitment to hen welfare doesn’t stop there. As part of the McDonald’s range enrichment programme for hens launched in 2008, over half a million trees have been planted on egg farms to provide natural shelter for our birds.

They’re perfectly formed

Now, for the cooking… we steam our eggs gently in a ring, which gives them their distinctive shape. Once cooked, they then fit perfectly into our toasted McMuffin® buns. At McDonald’s, there’s always a good story behind our food.

Improving hen welfare and egg quality by planting trees

Together with our research partners, FAI Farms, we’ve worked on a range enrichment programme to determine the effects that tree cover have on free-range flocks.

Because hens originate from woodland animals they will often avoid open fields and gather under trees for safety. The report, published in 2008, showed that hens living on ranges with greater tree cover experienced improved animal welfare as they were more encouraged to leave the barns and to express natural behaviour. As a result, we now require all farms supplying McDonald’s with free-range eggs to have at least 20% of their ranges planted with tree cover. As of 2021, over half a million trees have been planted on ranges as part of the McDonald’s range enrichment programme for hens.

Supplying the Irish free-range eggs for your breakfast

Greenfield Foods Ltd in Co. Monaghan has been working with McDonald’s in Ireland for almost 25 years. Their operations include producing, collecting, grading and distributing quality fresh eggs.

All the company’s free-range eggs come from Irish farms that are approved by Bord Bia under the Sustainable Egg Assurance Scheme (SEAS). Greenfield Foods is a founding member of the Bord Bia Origin Green Sustainability Program and McDonald’s has been a long-term supporter of the Bord Bia Egg Quality Assurance Scheme.