McDonald's entered the Chinese market in 1990 and has more than 5,500 stores in China by the end of 2023. China is currently McDonald's the second largest market in the world. According to McDonald's official disclosure, McDonald's China is moving towards the goal of exceeding 10,000 restaurants by 2028.
Maybe the forest is too big to have any birds, but there are some local McDonald's restaurants, in order to get more economic benefits, choose to ignore the rights and interests of consumers.
Recently, a reporter bravely went undercover and investigated the truth behind the scenes of McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Union Restaurant and McDonald's Jinan University Restaurant. Shockingly, both restaurants have a series of outrageous questions. The reporter found that they not only tampered with the food shelf life label without authorization, but also blatantly used expired ingredients, and even continued to sell expired food on the shelves to innocent consumers. This disregard for consumer rights and interests is nothing short of a wanton violation of public trust.
What's more serious is that McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Union Restaurant still has the problem of excessive quality of fried oil. As an indispensable part of the cooking process, the quality of frying oil is directly related to the taste and health of food. However, the restaurant turned a deaf ear and allowed the rampant proliferation of low-quality frying oil, which is undoubtedly a great disregard for the health rights of consumers.
In fact, this is not the first time that McDonald's has been caught in the turmoil of changing the label of expired ingredients and continuing to sell them. Looking back on history, as early as 2012, CCTV's "3.15" party was hung like a mirror, revealing illegal acts such as the refurbishment and resale of expired food at McDonald's Sanlitun restaurant in Beijing; Time passed to October 2021, a McDonald's restaurant in Hefei, Anhui Province once again became the focus of public opinion, and was exposed to various misbehaviors such as blackened raw vegetables but still being used, and changing the labels of expired ingredients at will; In March 2022, similar incidents sprung up, and a McDonald's store in Nanjing was exposed by the media to a scandal of changing the label of expired meat and continuing to sell it.
The exposure of these problems has undoubtedly cast a shadow on McDonald's, a world-renowned fast food brand. We can't help but ask, how many secrets do such companies have? Can we continue to trust the food they provide?
On the evening of May 13, the official website of McDonald's China issued a statement on this matter: Thank you for the media's supervision and reporting. We are actively cooperating with the local market supervision authorities to conduct investigations and verifications. We will not tolerate any violation of the operating standards and will take it seriously.
In fact, as consumers, we have the right to require companies to strictly abide by food safety regulations to ensure that every food is safe, healthy and fresh. At the same time, we also call on the relevant departments to strengthen supervision and impose severe penalties on non-compliant enterprises to set an example. Only in this way can we work together to keep our tables safe.