McDonald’s withdraws curry sauce as safety precaution
After last November’s buzz of the supposed discontinuation of McDonald’s signature curry sauce that ruffled many loyal patrons’ feathers, the fast food outlet announced early on Friday that the popular condiment will temporarily be unavailable again.
But this time, it's due to precautionary measure rather than a shortage of stocks.
“Our goal has always been to put the quality of our food and the satisfaction of our customers first. In regular product checks, we have noticed that a small number of samples from our most recent batch of curry sauce have had their packaging compromised. As a precaution, we have made the decision to withdraw the entire batch from circulation,” said McDonald’s Singapore in a Facebook post on Friday morning.
The new batch of curry sauce is due to be arriving soon and McDonald’s will update customers once the sauce is available. Currently, the BBQ and Sweet ‘N Sour sauces are still available.
McDonald’s stressed that it is their company’s policy to never compromise on the quality and the safety of the food they serve.
Meanwhile, at what seems to be a damage control act, McDonald’s announced in the same Facebook post that they “[would] like to try and make it up to [customers] in some small way”.
“From 10 to 24 February 2012, any purchase of Chicken McNuggets at our restaurants will entitle you to a FREE treat with our compliments -- 4 pc: 1 soft serve cone, 6 pc and 9pc: 1 apple pie and 20 pc: 2 apple pies,” said the fast food chain.
However, disgruntled netizens voiced their dissatisfaction over the announcement.
Said Zill Yvonne Tan, a Facebook user who commented on the post, “Again? Will taste [be] degraded further?”
Another user, Kelvin Gan said: “Not acceptable, pls [sic] reinstate curry sauce ASAP thanks”.
Other users took the opportunity to request for other popular sauces that have been discontinued such as mayonnaise.
“Oh really? If it’s your commitment to serve top quality food, what happened to the mayonnaise? Burger King still has them, or was the packaging of all the mayonnaise packets compromised since last year?” questioned Adrian Tan.
However, the majority of the comments on the Facebook post garnered positive comments, praising McDonald’s public relations skills.
“Thank you for taking the initiative to explain to us about the curry sauce, as well as improvising on the spot to assuage the problem. Some organisations certainly needs to learn more from your committee on prompt explanation, and some strategy like such to make customers/consumers feel better,” said user Kenji Kwok.
Sim Pei Shan echoed Kwok’s views, “Good job Mcdonald’s for informing the audience! Hope ur [sic] curry sauce can come back soon. Keep it up!”
At press time, the Facebook post has garnered over 400 “likes” and over 200 “shares”.