'Simple fries' campaign lands McDonald's in complex crossfire

Objections by the Food Commission and members of the public to a "simple fries" advertisement for fast food chain McDonald's have led to the campaign being slated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The print advertisement headlined "The Story Of Our Fries. (End Of Story)" shows a potato in a fries' box.

But complaints from the public and by organisations variously alleged that the fries were flash fried in beef tallow, frozen while partially cooked, flown around the world and then re-fried. It was also pointed out that the fries were sprayed with dextrose (sugar) and then dowsed with large quantities of salt.

McDonald's said that the advertisement was not intended to be "a literal and comprehensive statement of all the processes involved".

The company pointed out that part-frying and freezing processes were common in the fries industry and that salt was added immediately before serving at customers' requests.

A "low-concentrate dextrose solution" was added to bring colour consistency and McDonald's asserted that this had no significant nutritional impact or perceivable effect on taste.

However, while accepting that beef tallow had not been used in the UK since 1993, the ASA concluded that the advertisement was misleading because "material parts of that process were omitted from the advertisement" and instructed the "advertisers not to repeat the approach".

(SP)