Fast food giant McDonald’s — replacing “cheese” with other names — renamed some of the dishes in its outlet in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar after the state’s Food and Drug Administration unit suspended its license for deceiving customers by using substitutes in burgers and nuggets instead of actual cheese.
Alternatives of cheese are meant to mimic the taste, texture and purpose of the traditional cheese. The substitutes, allegedly identified in several of the fast food giant’s dishes replaced milk or diary fat with affordable vegetable oil, a Times of India report said.
The federal agency slammed McDonald’s for not disclosing the alternatives’ usage to its customers on the labels and accused it of “misleading” people into thinking of it as actual cheese.
“During inspection, our officers did not find any mention of cheese analogues (alternatives) anywhere. Items like ‘cheese nuggets’, ‘cheesy dip’ and ‘cheese burger’ were being labelled as such without indicating that the cheese was a substitute,” FDA commissioner Abhimanyu Kale told ToI.
He said that this incident has prompted the federal agency to plan probe of other fast food chains as well.
The probe against the food giant began with the inspection of its Kedgaon branch in Ahmednagar in October last year. Following the discovery of cheese analogues in at least eight of the items, a show-cause notice was issued to the organisation.
Though McDonald’s dismissed the FDA’s allegations and contested against their actions, the federal agency decided to suspended its license saying that the explanation provided by the establishment was ‘unsatisfactory’.
FDA commissioner Kale then issued an order pressing on the need to clearly label the items with appropriate font size and colour scheming.
In addition to this, he suggested that the nutritional information of the content of these analogues be mentioned on the products. Kale said that 40 per cent of the space on display boards should have the details of nutritional values.
“Menu cards should clearly state the use of analogues, addressing allergen concerns, and diet concerns such as presence of higher trans-fat,” Kale was quoted as saying.
Later in December, McDonald’s wrote to the food regulatory body and said that they replaced the word “cheese”. They renamed cheesy nuggets as veg nuggest, McCheese veg burger as cheddar delight veg burger, blueberry cheese case as blueberry cake, among others.
In fact, some of the outlets in Santacruz, Kurla and Bhendi Bazar have also started using the new names.
However, as per ToI’s report, the fast food giant on Thursday denied the use of any substitutes or analogues.
“Regarding the removal of the word ‘cheese’ from our menu at McDonald’s stores in Maharashtra, we want to reassure our customers that we use only real, quality cheese in all our products containing cheese. We are actively working with the relevant authorities on this matter,” a McDonald’s India (W&S) spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The company even shared letters from their cheese suppliers which show that the cheese sauce used in the frozen cheese nuggets are from Dlecta Foods Pvt Ltd and not a substitute.
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