The key to great takeaway packaging is the same as the key to great fast food in general; it should be simple, sustainable, easy to eat and have a focus on universal flavours.
The best and most successful takeaway foods today take this fully into account, with simple burger boxes filled with a delicious sandwich that can be eaten practically anywhere, with the packaging recycled afterwards.
However, because packaging is such a fundamental part of fast food, and because there are so many ways in which restaurants will push the envelope in order to get sales, there have been more than a few controversies that have since served as learning experiences.
McAfrika
A pita bread sold in Norway and Denmark by McDonald’s containing beef, cheese and tomatoes is, by itself, hardly a controversial menu item in terms of ingredients, but when it is called the McAfrika and is released during a humanitarian crisis, it did not receive the best of responses.
Allegedly based on an authentic recipe, it was already poised to receive criticism for such a claim, but the issue that made it far worse was that it was released during a famine that affected Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia and several other southern African nations.
Norway is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, ranking fourth by Gross Domestic Product per capita (per person) according to the International Monetary Fund, adding insult to injury.
Norwegian Church Aid protested the burger, giving survival crackers distributed as part of humanitarian aid efforts to people entering McDonald’s stores in Norway, whilst the Norwegian Red Cross condemned the McAfrika as “inappropriate and distasteful”.
Whilst McDonald’s did apologise, they did not withdraw the burger until the end of its sales campaign in September and even re-launched it in 2008, where it got exactly the same criticisms.
Footlong Is Just A Name
Subway has faced a lot of controversies over the past decade, but one of the most unusual of these involves arguably their most famous menu item.
One of the most popular and prominently advertised meal deals for years at Subway was Footlong, but despite being named after a specific unit of measurement, exposes revealed that the true length of the sandwich could be as much as an inch shorter.
Subway initially claimed that “footlong” was a name and not actually a description of the length of the sandwich, something that proved quite costly to them.
This led to an actual class-action lawsuit over the size of the sandwich, one which ultimately led to a settlement, $500 in compensation to the original claimants and over half a million dollars in legal fees.
Ultimately, whilst the nature of baking means that submarine bread will inherently vary in length and the toppings are measured out irrespective of the size of the loaf, it did lead to a change in practices that require Subway staff to measure with a ruler that a subway footlong is 12 inches.
A Bizarre Burger Gimmick Changes Burger Boxes Forever
The best types of burger boxes are cardboard cartons that are sturdy but sustainable, but this was not always the favoured option for storing one of the most popular foods in the world and primarily became so because of a rather infamous gimmick.
Mcdonald’s launched the McDLT in 1985 with a rather unusual gimmick; to ensure that the burger stayed hot and the salad stayed cold, it came in a split container, keeping the two halves of the burger separate.
The problem with this was that it relied on making even bigger and more wasteful containers that could not be recycled, and as the environmental impact of fast food became a bigger issue in the 1990s, McDonald’s removed the McDLT and switched the cardboard boxes we know today.
Whilst the burger itself is still sold by the company under the Big Tasty name, it is no longer split in half and is served in a box you can recycle without any problems.
McLean Deluxe
The entire Mcdonald’s Deluxe line was controversial in itself due to a failed attempt to go upmarket with a fast food offering that prided itself on being simple and universal, but the biggest of these failings was the release of the McDLT’s replacement.
The McLean Deluxe was meant to be a guilt-free burger, made using a beef patty that consisted of 91 per cent lean beef and was intended to appeal to a new group of health-conscious customers.
However, the burger itself was made with carrageenan (E407), a seaweed extract that thickens and stabilises food. Whilst it did fine in taste tests, criticisms mounted up around its flavour and it was abandoned in 1996.
