Many were excited when McDonald’s recently announced, “The McRib is back.” The question is whether it is really back or really a McRib. In an interesting decision out of Chicago, U.S. District Judge April Perry ruled that McDonald’s must go to trial on a class action lawsuit alleging that the popular McRib sandwich is made with non-rib meat. The lawsuit alleges that McDonald’s merely shapes the meat to look like ribs but uses shoulder, heart, tripe, or stomach — making it sound more like McHaggis. McDonald’s vehemently denies the accusation and stands by its representation that the only ingredients are “pork, water, salt, dextrose, and rosemary extract.” The class action was filed under an array of tort, fraud, and misrepresentation theories. In the end, however, the impact on McDonald’s could have the same business impact that the “pink slime” stories had on Taco Bell.
The ruling comes just three days after the McRib’s return to McDonald’s menus across the country. It first debuted in 1981.
The complaint alleges:
“Despite its name and distinctive shape—its meat patty has been deliberately crafted to resemble a rack of pork ribs—the McRib does not contain any actual pork rib meat at all. Instead, its meat patty is reconstructed using ground-up portions of lower-grade pork products such as, inter alia, pork shoulder, heart, tripe, and scalded stomach.” It alleges that McDonald’s uses the deceptive advertising to sell over 30 million such sandwiches each year. It also includes surveys showing that 72% of purchasers of McRibs expected that the product contains rib meat, which is more expensive than these other alleged meats.”
The class action was filed with sixteen original courts alleging fraud, implied warranty, false advertising, consumer protection violations, and misrepresentation claims. It also alleges a breach of express warranty under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) § 2-313. The court dismissed most of these claims but allowed consumer-deception, fraud, and unjust-enrichment claims to proceed.
Perry rejected McDonald’s claim that this is merely a trademarked name and does not allow for such liability, noting that other McDonald’s products, such as the McChicken and Egg McMuffin, describe their ingredients.
The shape of the McRibs featured prominently in the complaint, though the company will argue that people understand that it is obviously manufactured since there are no bones in the meat. However, the judge found that the McRib’s shape could support the consumers’ claim that McDonald’s presentation created a misleading impression about the meat they were buying.
The key to the ruling is that, at this pre-trial stage when facts are read in favor of the non-moving party (the class action) on a motion to dismiss, the court cannot find that there is no possibility for the class members to prevail. She is giving them a trial to prove their case.
For McDonald’s, it is a major blow since attention to the lawsuit will inevitably drive down sales. The company denies the accusations, but consumers may be a bit skittish about the whole barbecued tripe thing.
Regardless of the outcome, the public response could present the same pressures as the “pink slime” Taco Bell controversy, which led companies (including McDonald’s) to discontinue the use of lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) despite a defamation lawsuit by the beef people. Notably, ABC/Disney entered into a $177 million settlement over the story, but LFTB never recovered from the pink slime coverage.
McDonald’s will, of course, have its chance to prove its case in court, but in the interim, some customers may not be “Lovin’ It.”
I do have to admit the McRib has gone down somewhat in quality since first introduction. Or at least that’s my impression. Still decent.
Having said that and having once found out exactly what Haggis is, the McDonald’s item most emphatically does NOT resemble Haggis. Unless maybe there’s some oats in there as filler.
Using the good professor’s verbiage about McDonald’s defense, it is pork. OK, fair enough, but any edible portion of a pig is pork. So the plaintiffs may be right and McDonalds may be telling the truth. I suspect the truth will kill the McRib in the end when people find out it is not ribs, but parts of the pig that may not sound so tasty.
Me? I am not so far gone as to assume it is actually rib meat.
If being given an accurate description of the product would cause consumers to avoid it, then making up some fiction about it is fraud.
For example, calling a burger “Meatless Delight” would induce vegetarians to try it even if the later claim is that it is just a marketing term for pureed and reconstituted trimmings of pork, beef, chicken, fish, et al.
Perhaps it will lead to a discussion of what is “happy” about a “Happy Meal.”
So called “Class Actions” are the greatest travesty ever foisted off on the American people by the Legal Profession. Attorneys pocket Billions! Me; I get coupons.
What is the damage? Unless the plaintiffs were charged a price commensurate with real ribs, they have suffered no damage. Hey, chicken nuggets aren’t real chicken but an manufactured, rather processed product and taste like it.
It’s the Decoy ribs. 😂
I really don’t eat them.
🥂
The name is MCRIBS? Doesn’t everyone know they aren’t ribs? It’s like a Dan Sullivan sighting.
Extrudate by any other name would taste as sweet!
this sounds like the boneless chicken wings “scandal” of a few years ago. Boneless chicken wings are still…chicken wings. All McDonald’s chicken nuggets are the same shape everywhere. Is there really chicken in them? Or…chicken paste, I’m sorry I meant pâté.
No, “boneless wings” are not chicken wings. That was the whole point of the case. And the decision was it doesn’t matter, because everyone knows or ought to know that, so it’s the same as egg cream, which contains neither eggs nor cream.
Who other than the lawyers benefit from this claim?. Unless McDonalds explicitly claimed that item was composed of rib meat, which evidently they have not (they claimed it was pork), I would have thrown the case out.
This is another example of McLawyers parasitically making money without caring about the plaintiffs, the defendants, the law or the cost to society.
Not to mention their clients who very likely don’t eat at McDonald’s at all.
anyone who eats at McDonalds or any fast food business on a regular basis does not care about themselves and expects others (health care system, employer health benefits, socialized medicine vis a vis Medicare, Medicaid, VA health) to extend their lives. Hence lawyers are only taking idiots who relish acedia and gluttony to task for being…idiots who make acedia and gluttony their master.
We are living in a state of punctuated equilibrium vis a vis evolutionary biology, aka stasis. Most people are taking medications for their chronic medical pathologies that mask the molecular mechanisms of their self-inflicted diseases. Taken together with maladaptive behaviors, low fertility rate, aging population, technological dependency and others, our civilization is on a trajectory for self-destruction.
Would you like to super-size your order with Extra Large Fries and Large Coke?
Estovir, it doesn’t help that BiG Pharma isn’t in the business of actually curing disease, either. Fixing the underlying causes of many people’s ailments would put them out of business. “Managing Symptoms” keeps their
patientsshareholders happy.I think they do have a point, and wish they’d go after vendors of “fleece”.
Unless McDonald’s has made specific marketing claims that the meat in the new “McRib” sandwich is only pork rib meat, this suit id the kind of meritless, mud-dredging, BS that has given lawyers a bad name forever. “McRib” is a McD trademark; it can be made from whatever TF they want. Before you dispute that, do some research on what a “Del Monico” steak actually is. Tastiness is in the mouth of the beholder in this case.
It’s not a new product … it’s been around since 1981. And it is a meritless lawsuit. It’s a money grab.