From a single drive-in to more than 40,000 restaurants across 100+ countries — a celebration of McDonald's history, its impact at home and abroad, and the good it does along the way.
Every big number below began as something small — a 15¢ burger, one counter, a town that came back the next day. Here’s how it added up.
In 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois — a fifteen-cent hamburger and a simple promise: good food, served fast.
That one stand multiplied into more than forty thousand restaurants — the vast majority owned and run by local families, in their own communities.
From Chicago to Tokyo to São Paulo, McDonald’s reached more than a hundred countries — making the Golden Arches one of the most recognized symbols on Earth.
Today, around seventy million people are served every single day. Not one crowd — seventy million separate moments. One order, one smile, one community at a time.
From one stand to the world — and it’s still just getting started.
Behind the Golden Arches is one of the world's great engines of opportunity — local owners, first jobs, and dollars that stay close to home.
Around 95% of McDonald's U.S. restaurants are owned and run by independent local franchisees — neighbors investing in their own towns.
One of the largest entry-level employers anywhere, and through Archways to Opportunity, crew can earn tuition help, finish high school, or learn English.
In 100+ countries, menus, suppliers, and farmers are local — billions spent each year supporting growers and producers close to each restaurant.
Quietly, over years, McDonald's has cleaned up its menu — pulling artificial additives, switching to fresh beef, cracking real eggs, and building balance into every Happy Meal.
From apple slices in Happy Meals to oatmeal at breakfast, McDonald’s has quietly built healthier choices into the menu most families already know by heart — here’s a 20-second look at the freshness behind it.
Since 2012, McDonald’s has automatically included freshly sliced apples in every U.S. Happy Meal — a quiet change that puts more than a billion servings of fruit in the hands of kids each year.
Since 2018, soda came off the default Happy Meal menu boards in the U.S. — 1% low-fat milk, water, and Honest Kids juice took its place. Smarter defaults, no extra ask.
Slow-cooked oatmeal topped with fresh apples, cranberries, and raisins. A warm, wholesome breakfast option that’s quietly become one of the brand’s most beloved morning items.
From the McSalad Shaker to today’s premium grilled-chicken salads and side salads across global markets, lighter options have been part of the lineup for decades.
Long before a single fry is salted, there are farmers — many of them families who’ve worked the same land for generations. McDonald’s food is grown, raised, and harvested by tens of thousands of them. They are the quiet heroes of every meal.
Take the potato growers. The Russet Burbanks behind the World Famous Fries come from multi-generational family farms where pride is handed down like the land itself — from growers in Washington and Idaho to the Levesque family in New Brunswick. When something is made with that kind of care, you can taste it.
— the spirit of a McDonald’s potato grower
The 100% fresh beef in every Quarter Pounder begins out here — with ranching families raising cattle on open pasture. Through the Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and programs that return cropland to grassland, McDonald’s stands behind the people who steward both the herd and the land for the generations that follow.
— raised by family ranchers, on real grass
The round egg in every Egg McMuffin is a real, Grade A egg — freshly cracked and cooked on the grill each morning. And it’s 100% cage-free: McDonald’s reached its U.S. cage-free egg goal ahead of schedule, backed by the family farms that have supplied that same McMuffin egg for decades.
— freshly cracked, 100% cage-free
Freshly cracked, 100% cage-free eggs and farm-fresh dairy — from families who’ve supplied the same McMuffin egg for decades.
Crisp lettuce from four-generation farms in the Salinas Valley and apples hand-picked at their peak of ripeness.
Suppliers like Lopez Foods and Keystone have stood beside McDonald’s since the 1960s — relationships measured in generations, not contracts.
To every farmer, rancher, and grower in the McDonald’s family — thank you. None of it happens without you.
For families with a seriously ill or injured child, the hardest part can be the distance — from home, from each other, from a hot meal and a place to sleep. For more than 50 years, Ronald McDonald House Charities has existed to close that distance.
In Philadelphia, a pro football team, a children’s hospital, and a local McDonald’s came together around one little girl’s fight with leukemia — and opened the very first Ronald McDonald House, so her family could stay close. Five decades later, that single house has become a movement spanning the globe.
Every Ronald McDonald House sits steps from a children’s hospital, offering a private room, a warm meal, and a quiet place to breathe — at no cost. Funded by McDonald’s, its customers’ Round-Up donations, and local communities, the charity saved families $783 million in lodging and meals in a single year.
Inside a Ronald McDonald House there’s a shared kitchen, a playroom, and a warm bed — and other parents who understand exactly what you’re carrying. For a little while, families can set down the logistics and simply be together, focused on the only thing that matters: caring for their child.
— helping families care for their child
A true home away from home next door to the hospital — private bedrooms, home-cooked meals, laundry, and other families who understand exactly what you’re going through.
A calm, comfortable retreat inside the hospital — just steps from the bedside — so a parent never has to be far when their child needs them.
Bringing checkups, dental care, and treatment directly to children in communities where quality care is hard to reach.
Tens of millions of families. Five decades. One simple idea — keep families close.
A commitment to cut carbon-emissions intensity 31% by 2030, working hand-in-hand with farmers and suppliers.
Sourcing standards for beef and the soy in feed aim for a deforestation-free supply chain as the brand grows.
100% cage-free eggs achieved in the U.S. ahead of schedule, broiler-welfare commitments met, and antibiotic use in poultry cut 47% since 2019.
Seventy years on from a 15-cent hamburger, McDonald's still keeps families together, sets the bar for its suppliers, and hands a kid a Happy Meal that makes their whole day. This is our tribute to that story.
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