Introduction
Fast-food chains have been in the news a lot this year, and not always for the best reasons. From health and safety concerns to labor disputes, there have been a number of scandals that have rocked the industry. In this article, we’ll take a look at five of the biggest scandals that have rocked fast-food chains this year. From a major data breach to a controversial new menu item, these scandals have had a major impact on the industry and have left many customers wondering what’s next. We’ll also discuss how these scandals have affected the industry and what customers can do to protect themselves.
5 Major Scandals That Rocked Fast-Food Chains This Year
Fast-food chains have had a tumultuous year, with several major scandals rocking the industry. From health code violations to labor disputes, here are five of the biggest scandals that have made headlines in 2020.
1. Chipotle’s Health Code Violations
In July, Chipotle was hit with a lawsuit alleging that the chain had violated health codes in its California locations. The lawsuit claimed that Chipotle had failed to properly store food, failed to properly clean its equipment, and failed to properly train its employees. The lawsuit was eventually settled, with Chipotle agreeing to pay a $1.3 million fine.
2. McDonald’s Labor Disputes
McDonald’s has been embroiled in a series of labor disputes this year, with workers in several countries protesting for better wages and working conditions. In the US, workers have staged walkouts and strikes in cities across the country, demanding a $15 minimum wage and the right to unionize. The protests have been met with mixed results, with some cities raising their minimum wage and others refusing to budge.
3. Wendy’s Antibiotic-Free Chicken
In August, Wendy’s announced that it would be transitioning to antibiotic-free chicken in all of its US locations. The move was met with praise from health advocates, who have long argued that the overuse of antibiotics in the food industry is contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Wendy’s is the first major fast-food chain to make the switch, and other chains are expected to follow suit.
4. Burger King’s Plastic Straw Ban
In September, Burger King announced that it would be phasing out plastic straws in all of its US locations. The move was part of the chain’s larger sustainability initiative, which also includes the use of recyclable packaging and the elimination of single-use plastics. The move has been praised by environmental advocates, who have long argued that plastic straws are a major source of ocean pollution.
5. KFC’s Chicken Shortage
In October, KFC was hit with a major chicken shortage in the UK. The shortage was caused by a supply chain issue, with the chain’s new delivery partner failing to meet demand. The shortage caused chaos in the UK, with customers lining up for hours in the hopes of getting their hands on a bucket of chicken. The shortage was eventually resolved, but not before it caused a major headache for the chain.
When the general public gets a peek into the inner workings of colossal corporations, we usually aren’t enthused—especially when it comes to companies that are making our food. In the midst of a PR scandal, even the most devout fast-food fans take to social media with opinionated pushback against their beloved restaurants. The combo meals might be popular, but unfortunately for any major fast-food institution, so is their bad press.
We followed along all year as some of the biggest players in the space came under fire for everything from wastefulness to social media blunders. Below, we’ve rounded up five of the most controversial fast-food scandals in 2021.
For more, check out 4 Fast-Food Chains With the Biggest Food Poisoning Scandals In History.
It started with a good intention: to draw attention to the gender disparity within the restaurant industry. In the UK, only 20% of professional chefs are women, so while this was a righteous cause to drum up outrage about, the way @BurgerKingUK went about it ended up in outrage directed at them.
“Women belong in the kitchen,” the account tweeted out in March of this year. After immediate public pushback, they quickly clarified, “We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry.” However, even deleting the original tweet and apologizing wasn’t enough to make fans forget the faux pas. The news about BK’s offensive message spread much faster than the news they intended to get out there, which was about the scholarship program they were putting in place for female employees.
Is social media ever good for fast food businesses? We’re working on a highly-substantiated theory that it isn’t. If Burger King was Exhibit A this year, then Dunkin’ is Exhibit B.
In January @bryanjohnston_, a Dunkin’ employee, released a now-viral TikTok video that showed piles of donuts and munchkins being dumped in the trash at the end of the night. The video got over 33 million views, almost 116,000 angry comments, and is set to the undeniably catchy “In This House” by Marcus Vinicius Alfaro Nascimento.
Bryan specified that there were exactly 312 donuts and munchkins discarded, and despite the public’s appreciation for his pulling back the curtain on just how wasteful Dunkin’ is, he was fired within a couple of days. He’s doing fine now (has moved over to the ice cream industry) but we still think Dunkin’s PR could have handled this one with a little more tact.
This was hardly news, as Chick-fil-A’s conservative stance on LGBTQ issues is as known as their red logo. But another major scandal broke out this summer when Chick-fil-A’s CEO Dan Cathy was named a “high-dollar donor” to the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCF), which was reportedly funding the opposition to The Equality Act. All this after Cathy, who has a history of donating to anti-LGBTQ causes, promised to stop doing this in 2020.
Twitter activists reacted strongly, with one user quite literally unveiling the ingredients in the chain’s secret sauce (or, at least, a promising-sounding copycat recipe) before adding, “There. Now please get a better sandwich somewhere else.”
This is actually a two-part saga that started last summer in New York City and got its most recent update a year later, this June.
Back in 2020, three on-duty cops ordered Shake Shack milkshakes on their phones and cried foul when they allegedly tasted a strange substance in the drinks. They believed their shakes were poisoned and accused the location’s manager, Marcus Gilliam, of foul play. Gilliam and some of his employees were actually arrested and detained for several hours over these accusations.
This summer, the exonerated Gilliam filed a federal defamation lawsuit against several NYPD unions, claiming that his reputation was tarnished by the incident, especially after unfounded accusations were recklessly disseminated on Twitter by the police.
The story is still very much unfolding, and perhaps the one comedic relief in this tale are the names the three officers were given in the official report of the incident: “Officer Strawberry Shake,” “Officer Vanilla Shake” and “Officer Cherry Shake.”
Cue yet another scandal that both started and reached the height of its controversy via social media. In September of this year, the CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, Jonathan Neman, posted on LinkedIn what might have been intended to be a thought-provoking opinion.
“What if we made the food that is making us sick illegal,” he wrote. “What if we taxed processed food and refined sugar to pay for the impact of the pandemic?” Unfortunately, he followed that up with “78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are obese and overweight people,” and questioned if there is an “underlying problem” tied to that statistic. The blowback calling him “fatphobic” was swift.
Neman quickly deleted the post and apologized to his staff for his delivery, but reiterated that he stands by the ideology behind it.