Did you ever really think about how McDonald’s burgers are made? I mean, those billions of identical burgers and buns come from millions of tons of ingredients, so there has to be some serious factory food production involved.

Turns out McDonald’s gets their beef patties from several different plants including the largest, Cargill’s Fresno Plant, which churns out 4 million beef patties per day!

Now, sit back and enjoy this video showing the fascinating process of how McDonald’s burgers are made.

How McDonald’s Burgers Are Made:

Here’s a fascinating video showing how McDonald’s buns, beef patties, and cheese are processed and made in a huge factory by machines:

1. First, witness the orderly glory of machines making thousands of McDonald’s sesame seed buns.
2. Then, watch tons of unappetizing fatty beef ground up, processed, and then transformed magically into pleasingly identical burger patties travelling down the conveyor belt.
3. Next, comes some bonus video of McDonald’s chicken which is breaded and fried
4. Then we are treated to video of how burgerlettuce gets shredded, washed, dried
5. I always order my burger with cheese, so here’s how all those slices of cheese are made and precisely siced (watch your fingers!)
6. Finally, all the ingredients are boxed up and sent to local McDonald’s restaurants all over America

How long from cow to McDonald’s burger? The Cargill meat plant takes about 21 days to process McDonald’s beef. That means the burger you order at McDonald’s was likely part of a frightened cow about 21-30 days ago.

*See the First McDonald’s Commercial!

McDonald’s Burgers Assembly

“Our simple, classic cheeseburger begins with a 100% pure beef burger seasoned with just a pinch of salt and pepper. The McDonald’s Cheeseburger is topped with a tangy pickle, chopped onions, ketchup, mustard, and a slice of melty American cheese.”

McDonalds.com

The actual McDonald’s burgers are then assembled lovingly (ha, ha!) on-location in one of the more than 39,000 McDonald’s restaurants worldwide including about 15,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

You won’t find McDonald’s burgers on the Noom healthy food list!

*Related: McDonald’s Portion Sizes Over the Years

So, then next time you order a McDonald’s burger, I hope you remember the process of large machines and robots in factories that process and prepare the McDonald’s burger patties, buns, and cheese.

Billions of McDonald’s Burgers Served:

When I was young the local McDonald’s restaurants used to update their golden-arches signs with how many billions of burgers had been served.

Then, in 1994 after McDonald’s surpassed 99 billion, it got ridiculous and they just left it at, “billions and billions served.”

Fun Fact: It is estimated that McDonald’s has sold over 300 billion burgers since being founded by Ray Kroc in 1955 (source)

That’s a lot of burgers, and unfortunately a lot of cows! Good thing I’m desensitized to the whole thing. If I had to kill a cow myself to get burger meat I’d be a vegetarian pretty quickly.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed the video of how McDonald’s meat and buns are made!