McDonald’s Bids For Food Contract in Russia……Amidst Expansion

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McDonald’s bids to feed major Russian sports event

December 24, 2014

The World Aquatics Championships is to take place in Kazan between July 24 and August 9, 2015, organizers say 2,400 athletes from 190 countries are to participate in the event

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© EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV

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KAZAN, December 24. /TASS/. US most popular brand McDonald’s, which has been recently struggling to regain Russian customers’ trust, could win a contract to supply fast food for participants of the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Russia’s Kazan.

The head of a department of Russia’s food safety watchdog in Tatarstan, Marina Patyashina, told TASS the US food chain has already supplied food to athletes at the 2013 Universiade in Kazan.

“They are able enough to work at the World Championship, we have no complaints about their activity,” she said, adding that the facilities for supplying food to the participants are expected to be announced in the first quarter of 2015.

Russia’s Kazan is due to host the World Aquatics Championships between July 24 and August 9, 2015. Organizers say 2,400 athletes from 190 countries are to participate in the event.

In December, McDonald’s said its same-store sales in Russia were “very weak” in November, as a number of the fast-food chain’s outlets were closed this past summer after unscheduled checks by Russia’s food safety watchdog.

Russia’s food safety watchdog launched a wave of checks of nearly 200 McDonald’s branches across the country in August. Several outlets were shut down in locations extending from Moscow to the Ural Mountains and from St. Petersburg to southern Stavropol region.

SOURCE: http://itar-tass.com/en/russia/768992

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McDonald’s Partner to Quadruple Investment in Russian Economic Zone

The Moscow Times Oct. 13 2014

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Aaron Toth / FlickrEast Balt has been working with McDonald’s since 1967 and has 19 bakeries in 13 countries, including — since 2009 — Russia.

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East Balt Bakery, the U.S. maker of McDonald’s hamburger buns, is planning to quadruple investment in its factory in Russia’s Alabuga special economic zone to 752 million rubles ($18.6 million), despite Russia’s recent crackdown on the U.S. fast-food chain, Kommersant reported.

East Balt also plans to expand its factory from 0.5 to 2 hectares by July 2016.

East Balt’s expansion in Alabuga, a business-friendly industrial area about a thousand kilometers east of Moscow in Tatarstan, will go up beside a slated “Food Town” for McDonald’s suppliers. The “Food Town,” which will have its own distribution center, will include areas for lettuce grown by Russian firm Belaya Dacha and disposable packaging made by Finnish company Huhtamaki.

This grouping of companies that work closely with McDonalds “will help the group expand beyond the Urals,” Alabuga deputy general director Renat Halimov told the newspaper.

McDonald’s expansion into Siberia has been in the works since 2012, and includes the creation of 45 new fast-food restaurants.

McDonald’s has recently faced problems in Russia in what many see as growing anti-Western sentiment. Twelve fast-food branches have been closed by sanitation inspectors, and investigations began last week into McDonald’s charitable foundation, Ronald McDonald House, over alleged money-laundering and account manipulation. Despite these difficulties, plans for expansion into Siberia have not changed, the company told Kommersant.

East Balt Bakery has been working in Russia since 2009. The company has been working with McDonald’s since 1967 and has 19 bakeries in 13 countries.

SOURCE: U.S. East Balt Bakery To Quadruple Russian Investment