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McDonald's Says Controversy Not Affecting Sales
NEW DELHI, May 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Indian subsidiary of the U.S. fast food giant McDonald's reported brisk business Sunday, despite a controversy over the alleged use of beef extract in its popular french fries.
"The controversy is having no impact on sales," a spokesman for McDonald's India told AFP.
"Its been business as usual," he added.
These comments came a day after McDonald's-India issued a statement Saturday, clarifying that the vegetarian menu offered by its outlets in the country did not contain beef flavor.
"Our vegetarian menu in India does not contain beef flavor and we are ready for testing by inspection agencies, capable to deal with it," Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald's-India, was quoted as saying by press reports Sunday.
"We are also Indians ... and we are extremely sensitive to Indian culture and religious sentiments," he added.
Cows are revered in India and law bans their slaughter.
The controversy follows a legal claim by a U.S. attorney that the restaurant chain has lied to customers for more than a decade by using beef fat in its french fries.
In the U.S., a lawsuit is underway filed by two Hindus and a vegetarian. Some Muslims in America have shown interest in joining the lawsuit as the beef flavoring, which is offered in U.S. chains of the restaurant, may violate Islamic dietary proscriptions requiring all meat and its derivatives to be halal (Islamically slaughtered meat)
On Saturday, radical Hindu organizations in India demanded the closure of all McDonald's outlets in India, accusing the fast food giant of insulting the country's religious beliefs by using beef flavoring.
"The use of beef in french fries is an attack on the religious sentiments of Hindus, and we don't believe McDonald's clarifications of not using beef extract in its french fries in India," Jai Bhagwan Goyal, the chief of the right wing Shiv Sena, said.
The Shiv Sena party (Lord Shiva's Army), which is affiliated to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party, also staged a noisy demonstration in front of the international chain's local headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday.
A Sena delegation led by firebrand Goyal also handed over a memorandum to Vajpayee's office demanding the immediate closure of all outlets in India.
"In a country where 800 million people worship the cow, one cannot go on with this kind of a controversial product," Goyal said in his letter to the premier.
The Shiv Sena has been joined by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Forum), another powerful extremist Hindu organization, in rejecting McDonald's claims that it has not used beef products.
"Since this company has lied in the United States, there is a possibility of the same being done here," VHP General Secretary Acharya Giriraj Kishore said, referring to McDonald's recent admission in the U.S. that its recipe indeed included beef extract.
McDonald's has already pumped four billion rupees ($87 million) into its Indian operations and plans to double the investment in the next two years.
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