theceomagazine.com | 49(more than €345,000) through its annual
charity campaign which benefited two
organisations working with children with
Down syndrome. The company has also taken
on employees with the condition, some of
whom have now been with it for more than
a decade. “They have been successfully
integrated into the community and developed
their skills. For me personally, that’s a great
cause that I care about.”
Since the company was founded, it has
raised more than 10 million riyals for various
charities working across a range of
humanitarian causes. The company is also
concerned with communicating that its food
should be part of a balanced diet and
a healthy lifestyle. “We invest a lot in these
programs,” Prince Mishaal confirms. “We’re
educating the public on the right way of
going about this.”
This commitment to health involves
reviewing the menu every five years and
being transparent about the nutritional profile
of every item, with extensive information
being made available on flyers, placemats and
an online platform. The company also runs
educational sessions for young mothers on
childhood nutrition and healthy diets.
Internationally, the company has committed
to a healthier update of its Happy Meal
menu, which is hugely popular with children,
by 2022. The revised menu will offer more
balanced options and use innovative
marketing to promote healthy choices.
Recently, McDonald’s Saudi Arabia ran
a campaign called ‘Every Day. A Better Day’,
which revised the menu to improve its
healthiness, introducing a new frying oil with
80 per cent less saturated fat and mayonnaise
with half the previous calorie count. It also
moved to exclusively using sustainably
sourced fish in its restaurants.
Its efforts to promote sport and activity
have included an incentive in partnership
with FIFA where eight lucky Saudi kids had
the chance to fly to Brazil for the 2014
World Cup and even accompanied players
onto the pitch. McDonald’s has sponsored
basketball championships, soccer tournaments
and marathons. “We run a lot of initiatives
for kids,” Prince Mishaal says.
“We encourage them to live an active
lifestyle by developing programs that are fun,
filled with sports and movements.”
Prince Mishaal himself remains an
unabashed fan of the restaurant and fondly »“ AS LOCAL
FRANCHISEES, WE
ARE PRIVILEGED TO
HAVE A HIGH LEVEL
OF INVOLVEMENT
FROM THE
MCDONALD’S
GLOBAL TEAM.”
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