Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives (MBFI) — a collaborative project for research and development in the beef industry — announced yesterday it will be partnering with one of the country's largest fast-food chains.

McDonald's Restaurants of Canada and MBFI are teaming up to develop tours of the MBFI research sites in the Brandon area.

"We've learned over time that consumers want to know where their food comes from, and as farmers and ranchers, we don't always communicate well back, so this just gives us a platform to show science-based research of how food is produced and brought from our gate to their plate," says Ramona Blyth, MBFI president.

MBFI is a project between Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Beef Producers, Ducks Unlimited, and the provincial Forage and Grassland Association, aiming to test risky projects that producers don't want to try on their own farms. The McDonald's support will develop and grow the McDonald's Production Day Tour, a one to two-day annual event to engage stakeholders.

McDonald's Canada senior manager of sustainability, Jeffrey Fitzpatrick-Stilwell, says they like to focus on these kinds of collaborative efforts.

"Instead of creating McDonald's-specific standards for sourcing, we really look at this in a pre-competitive way and we want everybody to have sustainable beef, we want everyone to have sustainable crops, that's just the responsible thing. So anytime there's an really unique opportunity to help another multi-stakeholder, collaborative effort is something we like to do," he says.

The exact dates of the tours are still in the planning stages, but MBFI will hold its grand opening this summer.