Under a proposed master settlement, US burger behemoth McDonald’s will pay vegetarian and religious groups US$10m, and issue a more extensive apology, for cooking its French fires in beef tallow rather than vegetable oil.
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The company revealed that the settlement would control the terms in all pending cases and prevent any further liability in cases over beef-flavoured fries.
Five separate lawsuits were filed last year in Washington, California, Texas, Illinois and New Jersey claiming that the company had deliberately misled consumers over the status of the French fries. In 1990, McDonald’s publicly announced that it was switching to vegetable oil to cook its fries, leading many to assume that the snacks were vegetarian.
McDonald’s did issue an initial apology last year for any confusion it might have caused, but will now publish a more detailed apology on its Website and elsewhere. The company will also convene an advisory board for vegetarian issues.
A draft of the settlement says that 60% of the US$10m will go to vegetarian groups, and the rest to groups of Hindus, Sikhs and kosher dietary practices. An additional US$4,000 will be paid to each of the twelve plaintiffs in the lawsuits.
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By GlobalDataHarish Bharti, a Seattle lawyer who filed the first suit against McDonald’s last May, on behalf of 16 million Hindus and vegetarians, told Reuter’s: “I’m not happy with the US$10m, and wish I could do better in terms of money.
“But our focus was to change the fastfood industry, and this is a big victory for consumers in this country because we’ve brought this giant to do this.”
