McDonald’s has etched its name into the Guinness World Records ™ this morning with a breakfast fry-up like no other.

The company cooked a massive meal of scrambled eggs that weighed in at 1.24 metric tonnes, breaking the previous world record of one metric tonne by more than 200kg.

In order to break the world record McDonald’s had to use more than 20,000 eggs and 100 litres of cream, cooked on a specially made dish that measured more than five metres across.

To give an idea of the scale of the enterprise consider this- garden rakes were used as fish slices.

The record-breaking breakfast was cooked in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square.

As a bonus to the curious onlookers who’d showed up McDonald’s gave them a free breakfast of (you guessed it) scrambled eggs.

The record-breaking publicity stunt was to promote the use of free-range eggs at all McDonald’s restaurants in Christchurch and Dunedin, starting from today.

McDonald’s managing director Mark Hawthorne told NBR that the company uses about 36,000 free-range eggs a week, 15% of the company’s total egg usage.

However, the production of free-range eggs will have to rise substantially before the company can use free-range eggs in all its restaurants in New Zealand.

Currently McDonald’s New Zealand uses about 12 million eggs a year, far outstripping the annual production of free-range eggs, which is only 5 million.

There was one drawback from the record attempt and the promise of free breakfast- Mr Hawthorne said the local McDonald’s franchise closest to Cathedral Square reported a quiet morning at breakfast time.