McDonald’s Japan Roasted for Fake Roast Beef by Japanese Government

McDonald’s has found itself in hot water after it used fake roast beef to advertise its Tokyo Roast Beef Burger.

McDonald’s Japan is being reprimanded by the country’s Consumer Affairs Agency after the popular fast food chain was accused of misleading customers with its advertisement for the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger that made its way to menus last August and September, according to Asahi.

Commercials for the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger, along with the Tokyo Roast Beef Muffin, reportedly showed images of roast beef being sliced, making it appear as though the roast beef used in the burgers came only from meat cut straight from the block. However, the majority of the meat actually came from processed and reformed meat, a method that the fast food company claimed was chosen to increase meat content and enable mass production.

Following an investigation, the Consumer Affairs Agency found that McDonald’s violated the Law Against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations with its advertisement, which prohibits displaying products in a misleading way. The agency has since issued the Golden Arches a recurrence prevention order.

“We sincerely apologise for insufficiently explaining (the product),” a spokesperson for McDonald’s Japan said.

This is just the latest trouble that the Golden Arches has found itself in. In early July, it was announced that he Illinois and Iowa Departments of Public Health were investigating McDonald’s after people reported feeling sick after eating salads from the fast-food chain.

The health departments claimed that they saw an increased in cyclosporiasis, a parasitic intestinal infection that was also recently linked to Del Monte Vegetables. In Iowa, 15 people with the infection were said to have eaten McDonald’s salads in late June to early July prior to getting ill, and Illinois linked more than a quarter of 90 cases of cyclosporiasis back to McDonald’s salads.

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that those numbers had risen to more than 280 people infected across 15 states, including Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Connecticut, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, South Dakota and Florida, Michigan Live reports.

The source of the outbreak has not yet been identified, but the Food and Drug Administration has reported that it is working with McDonald’s to identify the common ingredients in the salads consumed by those infected.

McDonald’s has since stopped selling salads at more than 3,000 locations in the affected states and stated that they are “closely monitoring” the situation.