McDonald's is one of the largest fast food chains in the world, serving up millions of burgers and fries everyday. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of $144 billion. Aside from their positions at the top of their respective fields, you wouldn't think McDonald's and Bill Gates would have much in common, but you'd be wrong.
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00:00Over the last five years or so, fast food chains have been making a real effort to improve how
00:05and from where they source their ingredients, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The more
00:09consumers pay attention to the health and environmental impacts of what they eat,
00:12the more demand there is for transparency from restaurants for better, cleaner ingredients.
00:16As consumers become hipper to the effects of antibiotic-treated meat,
00:19chains have tried to cut back on their usage and have been subject to grading systems on
00:23how well they're doing. Eat This, Not That reports on the grading system gathered from
00:27a survey orchestrated by public health and environmental officials.
00:31Friends of the Earth recently released its chain reaction report, which looks at
00:35fast food restaurants and the amount of antibiotics they're using in their meat and poultry.
00:40In evaluating two dozen U.S. fast food companies, they gave Chipotle an A rating and IHOP an F for
00:45their use or non-use of antibiotic-treated meat. Vegetables are a little easier to source clean,
00:50but are just as important to know about when it comes to origins. And a recent newsworthy
00:54divorce has created a new pocket of transparency regarding one very particular ingredient source
00:58for mega-chain McDonald's, and it all ties back to the ubiquitous business figure Bill Gates.
01:03Since the news of Bill and Melinda Gates' split was made public,
01:06it's easily become one of the biggest divorces ever. That's the sort of thing to expect when
01:09the fourth-richest man in the world, worth $145 billion, splits from his wife of 27 years.
01:15One of the more interesting aspects to the divorce, which became official on August 2nd,
01:192021, is that we all got a closer look at the assets up for grabs.
01:23And Business Insider reports we now know that Bill Gates isn't just a technology mogul,
01:27he's also an incredibly successful potato farmer. Sort of.
01:30Gates isn't spending his days doing any intensive labor to harvest potatoes,
01:34but NBC quickly uncovered that he's the largest private farmland owner in the United States.
01:39Bill Gates, business magnate, software developer, philanthropist,
01:42nation's largest farmland owner? Yeah, you heard that right.
01:46According to Business Insider, he owns 269,000 acres spread out over 18 different states,
01:51an acreage more than the total of New York City. Fox writes that 269,000 acres is relatively small
01:57when you consider the 911 million acres of farmland available in the United States.
02:02But the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates other top owners only claim to have acreage in
02:06the 100,000 range, leaving Gates comfortably in the lead. People have wondered if Gates has all
02:11of this land as some element of his plan to improve the climate, as well as repair environmental
02:15conditions. It seems that his land ownership is much simpler than that, and it's just one of the
02:19many financial maneuvers by the billionaire. Gates said of the farmland purchases in a Reddit AMA,
02:23"[My investment group chose to do this.] It is not connected to climate."
02:27Gates owns farmland in several states that grow soybeans, corn, cotton, and rice. If
02:31you're eating carrots for dinner tonight, there's a good chance it came from his farm in Florida.
02:35But it's Gates' farmland in Washington state that's drawing the most attention.
02:38NBC reports that the plot is so large, it's visible from space. It's here that potatoes
02:43are grown, and these spuds supply the fast food chain McDonald's, where they're turned into hot,
02:47salty, and perpetually popular french fries. In 2018, Inc. reported that McDonald's buys 3.4
02:52billion pounds of potatoes per year globally, and serves over 9 million pounds of fries daily.
02:57They're the biggest potato buyers in the world, according to Taste of Home.
03:00Even if Gates isn't responsible for the entire worldwide supply, that's still a lot of fries.
03:04According to Bloomberg, Gates' investment firm sold its last shares in the world's largest
03:08independent McDonald's franchisee in September of 2020. Gates is also a vocal advocate for
03:13eco-friendly synthetic beef, placing him squarely on the outs with the Big Mac.
03:16For all of these decidedly broken ties with McDonald's,
03:19Gates remains the man behind one of the chain's most popular items.