McDonald's Distribution Partner
Radhakrishna Foodland (P) Ltd. ["Foodland"] is a part of the Radhakrishna Group, which is
engaged in food and related service businesses.
From July 1993, much before McDonald's started its operations in India; sincere efforts were
made by Foodland to carefully understand McDonald's operations and requirements for the
Indian market. Better facilities and infrastructures were created and new systems were
adopted to satisfy McDonald's demands. Finally, all those efforts put in by Foodland
culminated into a handshake agreement with McDonald's India, to serve as Distribution
Centres for their restaurants in Mumbai.
The division has focused all its resources to meet McDonald's expectation of 'Cold, Clean and
On-time Delivery'. This in turn, evolved their mission statement, "To ensure that all
McDonald's restaurants are supplied without interruption, products conforming to acceptable
standards at lowest local costs to the system."
The Distribution Centre (DC) is responsible for procurement, quality inspection programme,
storage, inventory management, deliveries to the restaurants, data collection, recording and
reporting. Value added services like repacking of promotional items are also carried out at the
DC. The DC plays a very vital role in maintaining the integrity of the products throughout the
entire 'cold chain' - the distribution system that ensures the products, which arrive at
McDonald's restaurants from suppliers all over India, are absolutely fresh and as per
McDonald's Quality Standards. All these operations need to be managed in the most costeffective manner. The operations and accountings are totally transparent and are subject to
regular audit.
McDonald's introduced Foodland to F. J. Walkers of Australia, which resulted in an affiliation
between the two companies to develop the distribution set-up in India. The association has
helped Foodland to refine its operations to achieve the following:
• Designing and establishing the distribution system to handle large volumes.
• Engineering the storage and delivery network to service the unique requirements at
each of the customer's locations.
• Devising delivery schedules to minimise business interruption and maximise efficiency
so that store managers know exactly what to expect and when.
• Maintaining open communication lines with customers, suppliers and all business
associates.
• Emerging as a key system player after realising the inter-dependence of all the
associates in the McDonald's business system.
• Transferring good distribution practices to other divisions of the group.
The company has also invested in ERP Software to bring in efficiency, speed and accuracy
into the system. Foodland is the first Indian company engaged in such a business to have
customized software for smoother operations.
As a sign of increasing confidence in Foodland's operations, McDonald's agreed to terminate
the technical support that, till then was provided to Foodland by F. J. Walkers of Australia.
Foodland is also a member of McDonald's Asia Pacific Logistics and Distribution Team, which
helps it to sharpen its skills and benchmark its efficiency measures with others in the
McDonald's Asia Pacific Zone.
Foodland is highly optimistic that with the active support from McDonald's and its business
associates; it can reach even greater heights in the future and become a pioneer in the
organised food distribution system.
Foodland's association with McDonald's India is a typical example of McDonald's support and
commitment to its local partners, who are now growing as McDonald's grows.