Fast Food Brands

Are there any ethical fast food brands?

Fast food gets a lot of bad press for being nutritionally poor junk food made from ultra-processed ingredients. Animal rights and workers’ rights are also low down on the value system as fast food chains fight to provide food at the lowest price.

And yet fast food remains popular. Nearly a third of US adults consumed fast food on a daily basis. In the UK, a 2022 YouGov survey found that “Seven percent of people in the UK eat ‘junk food’ every day. A further 40% eat convenience food at least once a week. 12% of Britons say they don’t eat junk food.”

But does fast food always have to be unhealthy for all concerned? In this guide we have covered the top 18 nationally recognised fast food brands that primarily offer takeaway food and quick service or fast food, not table service. (See also our Coffee Shops guide for other takeaways like Black Sheep and Esquires where you can get a sandwich but their prime focus is coffee.)

Many of these chains may own some of their own restaurants, but many of their outlets are franchises run by numerous independent operators who pay the chain a fee for a license to use its brand name, products, and support system. These operators may be independent, but they have to agree to adhere to the brand’s overarching standards.

The brand owner has most of the power in this arrangement, so must take responsibility for any practices done in its name. For this reason, we have rated the brand owners, not the franchisees.

Which fast food brands are in the guide?

This guide to fast food brands includes all the big multinational companies like Burger King, KFC and McDonald's, as well as pizza companies like Domino's, Pizza Hut and Papa John's. 

It also includes chains like Costa, Greggs, Pret a Manger, Starbucks and Subway.

What fast food do the brands make?

In the table below we list the core savoury offerings of the fast food and coffee shop chains in this guide. Most also sells snacks, cakes and pastries, tea and coffee, and soft drinks.

Which fast food brands are being boycotted over Israel?

A third of the brands in this guide get 0/100 in our Israel-Palestine rating because they were named as campaign targets by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee. 

These are: 

• Burger King
• Coca Cola (Costa)
• McDonald’s
• Domino’s
• Papa John’s
• Pizza Hut.

All of them are “grassroots organic” boycotts, which weren’t initially called by the BDS National Committee but which it supports.

Calls for boycotts of all these companies emerged after their Israeli franchises appeared to give out free food to the Israeli military, except for:

Coca-Cola has significant operations in Israel, with the Coca-Cola Israel website stating: "Coca-Cola Israel produces and markets brands of ‘The Coca-Cola Company’ and leads the carbonated beverages and iced tea category in Israel. The company produces an average of over 1 million beverage packages per day."

Coca-Cola Israel also operates a "regional distribution center and cooling houses" in an illegal Israeli settlement on Palestinian land, while another company within the Coca-Cola group, Tabor Winery, sourced grapes from vineyards located in illegal settlements.

McDonald’s was initially targeted because its Israeli franchisee had allegedly given free meals to IDF soldiers. It later terminated its franchise agreement and brought its Israeli restaurants under direct control.

In June 2024, Pret a Manger pulled out of its planned investment in Israel which would have seen it open 40 stores there. Pret a Manger said that “travel restrictions” and difficulties caused by war were the reason for the move. Palestine Solidarity Campaign claims that the threat of a boycott campaign was behind Pret’s decision.

Problems with ultra-processed foods

We all know that fast food is bad for us because it is high in fat, sugar, and salt. But fast food is one of the foods that is also notorious for being ultra-processed. 

Last year, a US study found that 85% of menu items from the six highest selling fast food chains in the USA were ultra-processed. Only 11% of items were minimally processed (group one below).

In the UK and US, more than half the average diet now consists of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). It may be as high as 80% for those who are younger, poorer or from disadvantaged areas.

Recent studies published in The Lancet found UPFs linked to harm in every major organ system of the human body and an increased risk of chronic diseases and cancer.

How are ultra processed foods classified?

The Nova classification system groups foods by level of processing:

• Group one: unprocessed or minimally processed foods including wholefoods like fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, oats, and rice.
• Group two: processed basic ingredients used in cooking including salt, sugar, and vegetable oils.
• Group three: processed foods made by adding items from groups one and two. Includes canned legumes, fresh bread, and cheese.
• Group four: ultra-processed foods are industrially manufactured products made by processing foods beyond simple cooking or baking. They are made with additives like preservatives, flavourings, and emulsifiers that you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen. They include fast food, mass-produced bread, reconstituted meat, soft drinks, and snacks, and tend to be cheap, ready-to-eat, convenient, extremely palatable, and high in calories but low in nutrients.

Importantly, UPFs are not simply salty, fatty, sugary foods low in fibre. It’s the processing that is important too. In other words, home-made chips, lasagne, and cake are not as unhealthy as the ultra-processed varieties found in most takeaways or supermarkets.

The industrially processed ingredients in UPFs are high in calories but low in nutrients and are designed to be highly palatable, which makes us overeat.

UPFs are superfluous to basic human needs but they make corporations a lot of money because the ingredients are cheap.

They are guilty of putting profit before health.

Healthy UPFs and unhealthy UPFs

There has been a lot of reporting in papers such as The Telegraph and the Daily Mail about how plant-based meats are bad for you. While these substitutes generally are UPFs, and replacement of UPFs with minimally processed whole foods is recommended, research suggests that “plant-based meats appear to be the rare ultra-processed exception in that they are preferable to the foods they were designed to replace.”

Are UPFs bad for the environment?

According to the Soil Association, UPFs rely on intensive farming to produce cheap, standardised crops. Intensive crop farming results in deforestation and the release of carbon, habitat loss, and the use of polluting pesticides.

Intensive livestock farming not only pollutes soil and waterways but means that animals are treated as commodities with little regard to animal welfare.

Producing UPFs uses 2 to 10 times more energy than producing whole foods.

As the global economy is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, production of UPFs results in the burning of more fossil fuels than does the production of whole foods.

What are fast food companies saying about UPFs?

Essentially nothing much, not even Itsu and Leon whose ethos is to sell healthy and nutritious food as an alternative to conventional fast food.

Leon is renowned for its rice and beans and salad boxes. Co-founder of Leon, Henry Dimbleby, is no longer involved with Leon but has called for a total ad ban on UPF food and food high in fat, salt, and sugar, and for warning labels on packets.

What can we do about UPFs?

The authors of the Lancet studies want UPF ingredients labelled on the front of packets, alongside the existing high fat, sugar, and salt guidance. So does the nation’s PE teacher Joe Wicks and doctor Chris van Tulleken who launched a campaign as part of the Channel 4 documentary Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill, which involved creating a deliberately unhealthy "Killer" protein bar to expose regulatory loopholes.

Other measures suggested in The Lancet were:

• Bans on marketing aimed at children.
• Restrictions on these types of foods in public institutions.
• Higher taxes on UPFs.

Ideally, change should come from the fast food companies, without the need for regulations, but that’s unlikely. They need to shift to selling affordable and minimally processed foods, more along the lines of Itsu and Leon, instead of asserting that they are meeting consumer demand for convenience, affordability, and speed. 

Ban on junk food adverts

In January 2025, a ban on junk food advertising on TV before 9pm or at any time online came into force. This applies to foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt such as fast food stalwarts burgers, chips, pizzas, fried chicken, sandwiches, and soft drinks. The ban aims to tackle childhood obesity.

However, there are two loopholes in the legislation. The first allows for brand advertising (where a company promotes itself without showing a specific junk food product) because there was a threat of legal action against the proposed blanket ban by the food industry.

Outdoor advertising is also still allowed if it is more than 100 metres away from premises such as schools or leisure centres. But before the ban came into force, food companies had already been shifting their ad spend from TV and online to billboards and bus shelters. Their ad spend on outdoor advertising rose 28% between 2021 and 2024, with McDonalds’ rising 71%.

Take action on junk food ads

Youth activist group BiteBack are asking people to email their MP asking them to tell Wes Streeting to extend the junk food ban to outdoor spaces.

Vegan fast food

Reducing demand for meat-based products and increasing the availability of plant-based alternatives is key to help lower greenhouse gas emissions and the suffering of farm animals in factory farms.

All the brands in this guide offered some vegan options but some brands have recently reduced their plant-based offerings.

For example, Pret a Manger closed down all three of its Veggie Prets and Greggs recently cut back on its vegan offerings including plant milk.

The independent sector has also seen numerous vegan fast food restaurants closing down. Vurger & Co, which was based in Manchester, blamed soaring costs and a reduction in consumer spending but also anti-vegan misinformation, mainly from the right-wing press, charting “the death of veganism” and “the end of the trend”, which has affected consumer confidence.

However, the Vegan Society told the Manchester Evening News in November 2025 that there is "no evidence" to suggest vegan restaurants are closing at a higher rate than those that serve meat.

Plant based food and milk in fast food chains

It was surprising to find that only 7 out of 17 chains offered plant milk, given that 10% of adults in the UK are lactose intolerant and 3% are vegan.

When it comes to vegan options, Itsu is at the top, with 40% of its menu vegan. Pret offers a fairly wide range, and we are hoping that Leon will improve once its founder has restored it to its original mission now that it has returned to the founder’s ownership after being acquired by Asda.

The following table shows how many plant based mains were available in fast food chains (as of December 2025).

* In all stores and not just for a limited time.
Starbucks and Taco Bell didn’t label the vegan options or have a separate menu or search facility for them.

Animal rights and welfare

Fast food’s addiction to cheap ingredients not only affects our health and the environment, but it also has a significant impact on animal welfare.

The only points gained in our Animal Products category were for the use of organic milk. None of the companies had anything to say about free-range or organic meat even though, for most companies, meat was the core product that they sold.

We look at the main animal product used in fast food – chicken.

Chicken welfare

Chicken is more popular at takeaways than beef, even at beef-focused chain McDonald’s. That’s not good news for the 1 million plus “broiler” chickens slaughtered for meat every year in the UK when they are six to eight weeks old. 95% of them are reared intensively on factory farms.

In 2016 a coalition of scientists and NGOs started the the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) which has five main criteria, all of which should be met for all the chickens in Europe by 2026:

1. Moving to slower-growing breeds for improved health and welfare
2. More space to live – stocking density.
3. Natural light, perches, and pecking substrates so chickens can express natural behaviours.
4. A more humane slaughter.
5. Compliance with a meaningful third-party animal welfare certification and annual reporting.

At its core, the commitment requires companies to stop using fast-growing breeds that suffer from leg problems and heart disease. But progress on this is very poor.

What progress are fast food companies making on animal welfare?

All the companies in this guide have signed up to the BCC and have therefore pledged to meet all the criteria by 2026 apart from Domino’s which has said it will meet the criteria by 2032.

CIWF’s ChickenTrack evaluates the progress of the most influential companies which includes eight of the fast food chains in this guide: Burger King, Domino’s, Greggs, KFC, Papa Johns, Pizza Hut, SSP (Upper Crust), and Subway. 

According to its most recent update in 2024, not much progress had been made, particularly with regards to slower-growing breeds and stocking density. It seems that companies are more interested in keeping chicken cheap by packing them into small spaces and growing them fat and fast.

The highlights (and lowlights) from ChickenTrack are:

• Pizza Hut has not been reporting on its progress.
• Greggs is the standout having significantly improved its compliance in 2024, improving stocking density from 49% to 65% compliance during the year, natural light from 16% to 78% and enrichment from 64 to 85%.
• Only three companies made any progress towards the core criteria of slower-growing breeds: KFC (0.7% of its chicken is from slower-growing breeds), Greggs (1%) and SSP (9%). These figures need to be at 100% by next year but they are at least doing better than the other companies that are not sourcing any slower-growing breeds and are still relying 100% on fast-growing breeds.
• Three companies are more than half way to complying with the stocking density criteria: Subway (59% of chickens have more space), Greggs (65%) and Papa John’s (69%).
• Since the latest progress report, KFC dropped its pledge to stop using fast-growing breeds by 2026 because it said there weren’t enough slower growing breeds available. It hasn’t set another deadline and Connor Jackson, co-founder of the charity Open Cages, said: “We are in touch with companies that can supply KFC with the slower-growing chickens it needs to fulfil its  commitment.”

There should be a new Chickentrack report released in March 2026 for progress made in 2025. It seems likely that most companies will not have met their targets and will be moving their target date for compliance now that 2026 has arrived.

The Better Chicken Commitment welfare improvements mean that chickens are more expensive to raise. The increased cost is usually passed on to consumers but fast food companies could decide to absorb the cost and reduce their substantial profit margins.

Alternatively, Dr Tracey Jones, director of food business at Compassion in World Farming, said: “we need to be eating less meat. We could then perhaps afford to pay for better-quality chicken."

Workers’ rights in fast food companies

The hospitality sector is notorious for low wages, union busting, and zero-hours contracts.

Only four companies scored above zero in this category:

• Caffe Nero
• Itsu
• Pret a Manger
• SSP (Camden and Upper Crust)

Living wages

None of the companies, including these four, said they were paying employees a Real Living Wage. 

And the following have been named and shamed by HMRC for failing to pay the legal minimum wage: Caffe Nero, Domino’s, Greggs, KFC, McDonald’s, and Subway. All the arrears have since been reimbursed.

The largest average amount underpaid was by Caffe Nero (failed to pay £11,922 to 4 workers) while the most people underpaid was by Greggs (failed to pay £219,129 to 4,793 workers). Greggs said that it had reimbursed colleagues after the “unintended error” of making them pay for uniforms out of their wages.

You can view the full list of businesses which failed to pay the minimum wage most recently on the gov.uk website.

Zero-hours contracts

From 2018, after pressure from the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU), McDonald’s in the UK said that it offered guaranteed hours contracts to its zero-hours contracts workers. But a BBC investigation in 2025 found that 89% of McDonald’s workers in the UK were still on zero-hours contracts. And 50 workers across the country said they were not given the choice to switch to minimum guaranteed hours. That investigation also found numerous ongoing allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and homophobia.

Burger King and Domino’s also employ a lot of zero-hours workers, as will most of the brands in this guide, with the exception of two of our recommended brands – Itsu and Greggs – who have said they do not use zero-hours contracts.

In the UK, the recently passed Employment Rights Act 2025 did not ban zero-hour contracts outright, but provides protections that effectively ban them in their most exploitative form. These include rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and payments for short-notice cancellation of shifts, with corresponding rights for agency workers.

The move was welcomed by Trade Union Congress, which stated: “The banning of exploitative zero-hours contracts means many of these workers can now expect greater job security with an automatic right to new guaranteed hours contracts.”

Problems with fast food packaging

The UK government banned some single-use packaging in October 2023. 

Those items relevant to the fast food sector were plastic cutlery and polystyrene cups or food containers. Plastic straws and stirrers had already been banned. But fast food retailers can still use plastic containers and trays.

Most companies have moved towards paper or compostable/biodegradable packaging.

Brown kraft paper packaging made without a plastic lining is a good option and can go in the paper recycling. Pizza boxes are often made of kraft paper. Look for paper that is FSC certified to ensure that some level of forest management standards have been adhered to. It can also be made with recycled paper so look out for the recycled logo.

But paper packaging may be lined with a thin layer of plastic to resist water and grease. Some of these linings may contain forever chemicals (PFAs). The use of plastic linings also makes the packaging difficult to recycle. Look for containers which have a removable greaseproof paper lining.

Compostable packaging is more of a problem than it might seem. 

It is often made from bagasse, a byproduct of sugar cane. But these containers can’t be composted in most food caddy bins that are collected by the council because the recycling plants can only process food and can’t tell a bioplastic from a petro-chemical plastic. It’s all just plastic to them. They can be composted at home though, if the compositing conditions are right. But growing food to make into food containers uses energy, pesticides, and water, and it might be better just to use the food as food.

Aluminium foil is another common packaging material and it can go into the household recycling and be made into other aluminium products. Foil trays often contain about 30% recycled aluminium. But the manufacture of virgin aluminium is energy intensive and polluting. And the lids are often lined with plastic.

Reusable packaging for fast food 

Most takeaway containers are generally still single use and cannot be recycled. Reusable packaging is the best option.

Just like some coffee shops offer incentives to bring a reusable coffee cup, a similar approach needs to be made to food. It’s a tall order because, even at coffee shops, bringing reusables is still way off from being the norm.

What can takeaways do to encourage reuse?

• Charge extra for disposables to make bringing a reusable container the norm.
• Offer a discount for reusable containers.
• Sell reusable containers.
• Rent reusable takeaway containers to your customers on a deposit return scheme.
• Promote the use of reusables prominently in restaurants.

Beef and deforestation 

Many fast food chains based in the UK claim that they only use beef from animals reared in Britain and Ireland, but tropical deforestation for cattle ranches may still be an issue for their global operations.

Almost 80% of the world’s soybean crop is fed to livestock, and tropical deforestation for soya production is still a significant issue, as is cows’ production of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.

Soya is also fed to chickens, and intensive chicken farming has caused the pollution of waterways.

Global Canopy’s Forest 500 analysis of eight fast food companies in 2022 (six of which are in this guide) found that only McDonald’s, Restaurant Brands, and Yum! Brands had committed to eliminate deforestation from their beef and soya supply chains.

Subway and Domino’s had no such commitments for their soya supply chains or beef, and Starbucks had no commitments for its soya supply chain.

Find out more in our article on the links between beef, soya and deforestation.

What to look for when choosing independent fast food 

As the scoretable shows, there are no super-ethical brands in the fast food world, which is why we recommend finding a local independent shop. However, just because a food outlet is independent does not mean that it is more ethical – although your money is probably less likely to end up in the pockets of a large private equity firm which also invests in fossil fuels and mining.

So, what should we be looking for when trying to find an ethical independent restaurant and what should we be wary of?

Animal rights

Look for fast food restaurants where all the meat and dairy on offer is clearly labelled as free range or organic, or find a vegan restaurant. The Happy Cow website is a useful tool for finding vegan and vegetarian restaurants worldwide.

Sourcing and supply chains

Pretty much all the companies in this guide were shamefully vague about their sourcing policies and practices, making it difficult to judge whether they are really living up to their claims of sustainability.

Look for restaurants that are transparent about their supply chains. Restaurants sourcing from small local producers will be more likely to have an idea of what is happening in their supply chains. You can always get in touch with restaurants and ask about their suppliers.

Workers’ rights and modern slavery

You can use the Living Wage Foundation website to see which restaurants near you are members.

Larger companies are required to publish a Modern Slavery Statement which outlines what actions they are taking to tackle slavery in their supply chains. Smaller companies, however, are not required to do this. The police and anti-slavery organisations warn that there could be many people working as slaves in the UK restaurant industry. 

For more information, visit the Salvation Army website on how to spot modern slavery.

Fast food brands and tax avoidance

The majority of the fast food brands in this guide seem to have an issue with paying their fair share of tax.

Of the 18 brands in this guide, only two score full marks in our tax category.

Both Greggs and Leon score 100/100 for tax. Itsu scores 20. 

All the rest score zero. 

Slow food alternative

Avoiding fast food is a good option but in the real world that might not always be possible especially when you are on the go at a railway station or a motorway service station. Unless you’ve planned ahead and made a packed lunch, fast food may be a necessary evil.

But when you do have time, there is “slow food”. 

According to Slow Food International, slow food is “a way of saying no to the rise of fast food and fast life. Slow Food means living an unhurried life, taking time to enjoy simple pleasures, starting at the table”. The slow food movement believes that the way we eat and enjoy food has a strong connection to the way our food systems operate and the way our food is produced.

You can find out more about Slow Food by visiting the Slow Food UK website.