McDonald’s to offer limited delivery from 13 May

McDonald’s UK CEO Paul Pomroy has announced a “slow but safe” gradual return to operations - but its breakfast menu will temporarily be unavailable.

On May 13th it will reopen 15 of its 1,350 UK restaurants on a delivery only basis, working with Uber Eats and Just Eat and offering a limited menu.

The locations will be announced next week as the business assesses employee availability.

Pomroy said McDonald’s would build on its “high standards for cleanliness and routine cleaning of our restaurants” by increasing how often the procedures are completed and “update training on restaurant cleanliness and sanitisation”. It will also deep clean all restaurants before reopening.

It also plans to introduce perspex screens and floor markings, provide PPE including non-medical grade face masks, and employees will be tested with contactless thermometers on arrival at work for every shift.

Social distancing measures will also be introduced for delivery and service partners.

As well as “much smaller” teams, a limited menu will also be on offer. Pomroy said this would “support social distancing in our kitchens, whilst still providing many McDonald’s iconic menu items”.

Items that will be available include the Big Mac, hamburgers and cheeseburgers, Chicken McNuggets (including the 20 sharebox) and Chicken Selects, Filet-o-Fish, Fries and Mozarella Dippers.

It plans to reintroduce the breakfast menu “as soon as we can”.

“In March we took the decision to temporarily close our restaurants in the UK and Ireland for the safety of our employees and customers,” said Pomroy.

“Recently, we began working through a potential and limited reopening and I wanted to share with you an update that we shared with our franchisees and 135,000 employees earlier today.

“As part of our reopening planning, we have been listening to you and our employees, and we have worked closely with UK and Irish governments and trade bodies to help ensure we do this responsibly. We have deliberately taken our time, we want to get this right.

“We sought the views of our employees as we worked through our reopening planning, to give us all confidence in the measures we are introducing to keep them safe. We understand everyone has been affected by this global crisis differently and therefore when it comes to returning to work, our people will be encouraged to make the right decision, based on their personal circumstances.

“This week we have been running controlled tests to explore the safest way to reopen our restaurants. To give us all confidence in the new operational measures we are introducing to keep you and our employees safe, we asked our employees for their thoughts, have incorporated much of their feedback and will continue to listen and learn. The tests have proven successful and I will outline the ways in which we will slowly, but safely, begin to resume serving McDonald’s customers again.

“On May 13th, we will reopen 15 of our restaurants in the UK; this will be in a limited capacity with delivery only. The restaurants involved will be announced next week as we work through inviting our employees back to work and supporting our delivery partners to prepare for our gradual return.”