TORONTO — Popeyes has made new food quality commitments for the next five years as part of Restaurant Brands International’s Restaurant Brands for Good sustainability plan.
These commitments are part of the brand’s goal to serve responsibly sourced, high quality and great-tasting food, while continuously working to reducing its environmental footprint.
“Popeyes is known for its culinary tradition and craveable chicken and now people will start to know more about what’s behind the food they love,” says Rob Manuel, general manager for Popeyes Canada. “At Popeyes, we carefully select our ingredients and don’t take shortcuts on quality and that’s why we have been working hard to launch our new food quality commitment.”
Among these commitments is working to remove artificial colours, artificial flavours and artificial preservatives from fried-chicken menu items in Canada by the end of 2023. This is part of a larger global goal, which includes the brand’s work to remove these artificial ingredients from fried-chicken items in the U.S. by the end of 2022.
Popeyes has also committed to eliminating antibiotics important to human medicine from its chicken supply chain in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2021. This new sourcing policy supports the brand’s approach to animal welfare, which includes supplier guidance on the responsible use of antibiotics in food animals. Further, it aims to use 100-per-cent cage-free eggs, including whole eggs, liquid eggs, egg products and egg ingredients, in all corporate-run and franchisee-operated restaurants in Canada by the end of 2025.
From a packaging perspective, this year Popeyes is removing all EPS foam cups globally and replacing them with paper cups. The brand is working towards implementing requirements for all approved fiber-based packaging to come from certified or recycled sources globally, by the end of 2021.
Finally, the brand now sources palm oil that is RSPO Mass Balance certified or covered by RSPO certification and credits for its entire menu globally (for both directly sourced and for all branded food products with greater than one-per-cent palm oil or palm-kernel oil as an ingredient). This commitment is part of Popeyes’ ambition to support deforestation-free supply chains.
To celebrate these milestones, Popeyes launched Inside the Kitchen, a new digital campaign that highlights real employees and gives consumers a behind-the-scenes look at the real preparation process for its food.
