Senate calls on McDonald’s and Burger King to explain false advertising with sandwiches

The Senate approved this Tuesday (3) a request that provides for a hearing with representatives of fast food chains McDonald’s and Burger King to explain the cases of false advertising with their sandwiches.

The hearing will be held on Thursday (12).

The request was symbolically approved by the members of the Senate’s Committee on Transparency, Governance, Inspection and Control and Consumer Protection. As they are not authorities, such as Ministers of State, the requests have the force of an invitation and therefore their presence is not mandatory.

On Thursday of last week (28), the Ministry of Justice notified McDonald’s after the fast food chain publicly confirmed that the snacks in its recently launched “Novos McPicanha” line are not made with picanha. The sandwich is actually made with a flavored sauce.

The information generated a series of complaints from consumers on social media. The chain even removed the sandwich from the menu across the country, but later also announced that it would be reincorporated, but with a new name. In a video on his Instagram page, the fast food giant said he “vacillated in choosing the name of the new sandwich”.

A few days later, it was Burger King’s turn to find itself involved in a similar controversy.

This Monday (2), Procon of the Federal District suspended the sale in the federal capital of the Whopper Ribs snack, which does not contain ribs. Procon-SP, in turn, said it will notify the fast food chain.

Burger King claims the burger is made with pork shoulder and has “natural rib flavor”

The Federal District Procon’s decision is precautionary and may result in sanctions to Burger King if there is not “the total correction of advertising”.

The application approved by the senators provides for a public hearing with the participation of representatives of the two giants of fast-food chains, Procon, Conar (National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation), Blog Comer com Olhos and Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency). ).

The senators were unanimous in supporting the request for a hearing, authored by Nelsinho Trad (PSD-MS).

“We are in the era of fake news, and, fake sandwich, that was all that was missing. So, this needs to be clarified”, said Nelsinho Trad during the session.

“This situation needs to be clarified. I think that whoever denounced has to go public and explain why they denounced and what elements they found to make this denouncement. In addition, we cannot fail to guarantee that what is being denounced has the right to its defense, of the contradicted one. Who will benefit from this will certainly be the consumer. What you cannot accept is such deceptive advertising”, said the senator after the session.

In the same vein, Senator Eduardo Girão (Podes-CE) also criticized the two fast-food chains.

“So, these global fast-food chains, which have very great marketing power […] Can you imagine how many and how many millions of Brazilians may have been induced into errors? It was even a good pun: ‘”Let’s put it on clean plates’, because this is something that we need to [explicações]”, he stated.