Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Largest batch of scrambled eggs-McDonald's sets world record

  CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand  -- Fast food chain McDonald's cooked a massive meal of scrambled eggs, comprising of 20,000 eggs and 100 litres of cream that weighed in at 1.24 metric tonnes-which sets the new world record for the Largest batch of scrambled eggs .
Photo: In order to break the world record McDonald’s had to use more than 20,000 eggs and 100 litres of cream, cooked on a specially made dish that measured more than five metres across. ( enlarge photo )

   The record-breaking breakfast was cooked in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square. To give an idea of the scale of the enterprise consider this- garden rakes were used as fish slices.

   The record-breaking publicity stunt was to promote the use of free-range eggs at all McDonald’s restaurants in Christchurch and Dunedin.

 The main (and in most cases only) difference between free-range and factory-farmed eggs is that the birds of the former type are permitted to roam freely within the farmyard and kept in sheds or henhouses only at night.

    McDonald’s managing director Mark Hawthorne told NBR that the company uses about 36,000 free-range eggs a week, 15% of the company’s total egg usage.

Animal advocacy group "safe" is calling the move a "significant breakthrough" in the campaign for animal rights.   

   Managing Director Mark Hawthorne says that across the board, consumers are increasingly choosing free range eggs and that this is another way McDonald's is responding to the changing needs of its customers.

   Currently McDonald’s New Zealand uses about 12 million eggs a year, far outstripping the annual production of free-range eggs, which is only 5 million.

   Mcdonald's says it would like to use free range in more restaurants, but can't source enough eggs.

    "We use about 12 million eggs a year in our New Zealand restaurants, and there simply isn't the surplus supply of eggs available here that meet our strict standards for us to introduce free range eggs at more restaurants. We would expect that as consumer demand increases across the board, so too will supply of free range eggs.

 This new world record for the Largest batch of scrambled eggs break the previous Guinness world record of one metric tonne by more than 200kg.