McDonald’s and Hindu Culture
In many ways, McDonald’s Corporation has written the book on global expansion. Every day, on
average, somewhere around the world 4.2 new McDonald’s restaurants in 121 countries that collectively
served 46 million customers each day.
One of the latest additions to McDonald’s list of countries entered by the famous golden arches
had been India, where McDonald’s started to establish restaurants in the late 1990s. Although India is a
poor nation, the large and relatively prosperous middle class, estimated to number between 150 and 200
million, attracted McDonald’s. India, however, offered McDonald’s unique challenges. For thousands of
years, India’s Hindu culture has revered the cow. Hindu scriptures state that the cow is a gift of the gods to
the human race. The cow represents the Divine Mother that are harnessed to pull plows, cow milk is
highly valued and used to produce yoghurt and ghee (a form of butter), cow urine has a unique place in
traditional Hindu medicine, and cow dung is used as fuel. Some 300 million of these animals roam India,
untethered, revered as sacred providers. They are everywhere, ambling down roads, grazing in rubbish
dumps, and resting in temples-everywhere, that is, except on your plate, for Hindus do not eat the meat of
the scared cow.
McDonald’s is the world’s largest user of beef. Since its founding in 1955,countless animals have
died to produce Big Macs. How can a company whose fortunes are built upon beef enter a country where
the consumption of beef is a grave sin? Use pork instead? But there are some 140 million Muslims in
India, and Muslims don’t eat pork. This leaves chicken and mutton. McDonald’s responded to this cultural
food dilemma by creating an Indian version of its Big Mac-the “Maharaja Mac”-which is made from
mutton. Other additions to the menu conform to local sensibilities such as the “McAloo Tikki Burger,”
which is made from chicken. All foods are strictly segregated into vegetarian and nonvegetarian lines to
conform with preferences in a country where many Hindus are vegetarian. According to the head of
McDonald’s Indian operations, “We had to reinvent ourselves for the Indian palate.”
For a while, this seemed to work. Then in 2001 McDonald’s was blindsided by a class action
lawsuit brought against it in the United States by three Indian businessmen living in Seattle. The
businessmen, all vegetarians and two of whom were Hindus, sued McDonald’s for “fraudulently
concealing” the existence of beef in McDonald’s French fries! McDonald’s had said it used only 100
percent vegetable oil to make French fries, but the company soon admitted that it used a “minuscule”
amount of beef extract in the oil. McDonald’s settled the suit for $10 million and issued an apology, which
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read, “McDonald’s sincerely apologizes to Hindus, vegetarians, and others for failing to provide the kind
of information they needed to make informed dietary decisions at our U.S. restaurants.” Going forward,
the company pledged to do a better job of labeling the ingredients of its food and to find a substitute for
the beef extract used in its oil.
However, news travels fast in the global society of the 21st century, and the revelation that
McDonald’s used beef extract in its oil was enough to bring Hindu nationalists onto the streets in Delhi,
where they vandalized one McDonald’s restaurant, causing $45,000 of damage; shouted slogans outside
another; picketed the company’s headquarters; and called on India’s prime minister to close McDonald’s
27 stores in the country. McDonald’s Indian franchise holders quickly issued denials that they used oil
that contained beef extract, and Hindu extremists responded by stating they would submit McDonald’s oil
to laboratory tests to see if they could detect beef extract.
The negative publicity seemed to have little impact on McDonald’s long – term plans in India,
however. The company continued to open restaurants, and by 2003 had 38 in the country and announced
plans to open another 80 by 2005. When asked why they frequented McDonald’s restaurants, Indian
customers noted that their children enjoyed the “American” experience, the food was of a consistent
quality, and the toilets were always clean!
Source: Hill, Charles W., “International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace” Fifth