McDonald’s has reopened nearly 100 stores in the Chinese province of Hubei, two months after it was forced to shut down operations due to the spread of Covid-19.
Among the stores to reopen are several in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak of Covid-19 originated.
The fast food chain will resume its takeout service, offering contactless pickup from store, and also introduce a contactless delivery option, already rolled out by the brand in Singapore.
Each restaurant in Hubei has also increased health and safety measures to reassure its customers, including third-party professional disinfection of all stores and guidelines for safe handling of orders. Staff are required to wear masks at all times, hand-washing protocols have been strengthened and regular, daily temperature checks will be made.
Supporting essential workers
McDonald’s China is also continuing its provision for essential personnel working on the front lines of the pandemic. On 20 March, it delivered meals to returning medical staff at Wuhan Tianhe Airport and to date has delivered more than 72,000 free meals across Hubei.
In January, the company donated RMB 1 million to the Wuhan Charity Federation to purchase protective materials and provided nearly 200,000 medical masks to 11 provincial, municipal and community hospitals in Wuhan.
Supporting franchises
To mitigate the business impact of the pandemic, McDonald’s China has also upgraded its assistance to franchisees. To help alleviate cashflow, advertising fees payable in January and February 2020 were postponed until September 2020 while royalties payable from January to April 2020 were postponed until November 2020.
From January to June 2020, McDonald’s Global Headquarters will grant a 1% reduction of the franchise fee to the Chinese market, and the franchise fee to be paid to McDonald’s China by the franchisee will also be reduced by 1%. It will also assist franchisees who have short-term funding needs in applying for loans.
Liz Cooley
