New coating on McDonald's fries cartons in Japan likely cause flavour complaints

McDonald’s is known for delivering free smiles to their customers in Japan but recently, customers weren’t smiling back at them. That’s because people who ordered their medium-sized fries noticed there was a funky smell and flavour emanating from their packets.

Twitter immediately began filling up with customer complaints, with tweet after tweet detailing the weird taste of the chips.

“What’s wrong with McDonald’s today??? Their fries taste weird…is it perfume? Is it spice??? Like, what?”

“McDonald’s fries taste funny today. They have a perfumed scent like Nivea skin cream…”

“It’s not just me – everyone I live with tasted these fries and said they taste funny.”

“My fries smelled strange from the moment I opened the bag. When I ate them, they tasted like medicine and I hated it.”

“When I smelled the fries they smelled like cosmetics.”

“Everyone’s talking about the fries so something must’ve happened. What’s the reason for it?”

Usually, if there’s a change to the way a product is made, companies tend to let their customers know with a short note on their site or a quick message on social media. However, there was no such information on the McDonald’s site, leaving customers even more puzzled by the pungent new flavour.

After being inundated with customer enquiries, McDonald’s revealed that they hadn’t changed anything with the fries themselves, but they had changed the coating on the cardboard packets used for their medium-sized fries.

The cause of the foul fries was found to be the smell of the new coating, which affected the flavour and smell of the hot chips. McDonald’s says the coating complies with Food Sanitation Laws and has no effect on health, but after receiving so many complaints, they’ve now decided to stop using the new packets.

McDonald’s Japan hasn’t revealed the reason behind their decision to use new packets in the first place, although with less people eating out due to the pandemic, it’s likely to have been a cost-cutting measure.