By McDonalds trials new lockdown system
Fast-food vendor McDonalds is trialling a new system of ordering during lockdown, which is scheduled to be rolled out later this month.
Despite closing voluntarily during the first national lockdown, branches in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have remained open for takeaway, delivery and click and collect since the beginning of January.
Customers have not been permitted to walk into restaurants, making walk-in collections unviable.
But McDonalds have now announced that they will be implementing a number of new measures to allow customers into stores.
The new system is said to include visors and protective face coverings for employees, but the exact processes which have been put in place are currently unclear.
McDonald’s CEO UK and Ireland Paul Pomroy said:
“A month ago we made the voluntary decision to temporarily close walk-in takeaway while we reviewed our safety measures to ensure they reflect the evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Working closely with third party safety expert NSF International, we identified a small number of changes to further enhance our procedures, and we are currently in the process of rolling these out to restaurants.
“This week, a small number of our restaurants will trial reopening walk-in takeaway with these enhancements in place, with the plan to reopen the majority of restaurants for walk-in Takeaway across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland from Monday, February 22.
“Due to government restrictions, we are unable to reopen takeaway in Scotland at this time.
“New safety measures being introduced include visors as well as face coverings for customer facing employees, revised guidance and processes for our couriers to support their safe working and enhanced processes for managing customer and courier flow in restaurants.
“Once again, we would like to thank our franchisees, managers and employees for their ongoing commitment in supporting and implementing all of our updated procedures.
“The wellbeing of our people, as well as our suppliers, couriers and our customers remains our top priority, and we are confident the new processes in place will further enhance our already robust safety measures.”
Changes will see customers able to enter McDonalds restaurants for the first time in weeks.
