Image by elycefeliz via Flickr

IT’S easy when you think you know lots of stuff to sometimes look at things but not really see them, missing out on some useful and important details in the process.  And there’s a potentially good epitaph in that sentence for me, I reckon.

So, yesterday afternoon, I happened to be sitting in McDonald’s at Leicester Square with my other half, both of us munching on a quick pre-cinema snack of chicken McNuggets and fries, washed down with an orange juice (smooth, no juicy bits).

There I was looking around at the decor at various items on display – specifically some large floor to ceiling glass cabinets, filled with neatly stacked apples, oranges, sheafs of wheat in glass jars and boxes of eggs (the speckled ones that are clearly meant to look organic/free range).  Printed on the glass cabinets were a collection of words: “variety,” “quality” and “farm”.

Now, I admit to being a bit of a cynic and – for whatever reason – a bit anti-big brands sometimes, so my first position is to view this kind of stuff with some kind of disbelieving contempt.

But, I confess, Hilary (my wife) made me realise during conversation that this skewed view isn’t always right (perhaps rarely in fact).  I always broadly blame this viewpoint on having been a journalist in the early part of my career – but, actually, nobody ever taught me to think that way when I was learning the ropes as a cub reporter. And so, McDonald’s, I would like to apologise.

While looking around, I had looked at but not really seen a giant wall-mounted horizontal text display, that was continuously scrolling through a number of positive McDonald’s messages.  One in particular, Hilary suggested, would make a good article for this blog – following a conversation where I had said that I maybe might shut up shop with Home Zero Home (on reflection that was rash and definitely not an option).

The vital detail was McDonald’s fuel choice in its delivery vehicles.  Says McDonald’s:

“McDonald’s now converts its used cooking oil into biodiesel to power most of its fleet of delivery trucks. In order to do this we use a national waste oil collector throughout the country to collect and consolidate the used cooking oil from our restaurants. The oil is filtered and pre-processed prior to delivery to the biodiesel manufacturer. The manufacturer then converts the used cooking oil into biodiesel which fuels the McDonald’s delivery fleet.”

That’s to be applauded.  As is a further observation from the Mrs.  To get real change in areas such as environmental behaviours and practices, you need big brands to be involved otherwise it’s just not going to happen, or if it does it will take ages.  That’s a really good point which I think I may have looked at but perhaps not really seen.

Happy New Year everyone!