In the last couple of months, McDonald’s has been releasing videos to answer consumer questions on the way that their food is made. The most recent one, which I saw on an article by the Huffington Post, is concerning How McDonalds French Fries Are Made.

It goes through the regular process to introduce you to the farmer who produces all the potatoes, the washing process, the additives, and the frying, freezing and shipping. Then there’s the frying in the restaurant and even an answer of how much salt they use, which shows a pre-measured amount of about 1 teaspoon per batch of fryer fries. Though I’d be willing to bet there’s some salt added in the production process too, which they call a “dextrose solution”.

Now, I’m just going to say that I appreciate the fact that they’re trying to be transparent and all, but it seems to be mostly just a marketing scheme. I mean, it’s commendable trying to give some behind-the-scenes stuff, but really, what they’re showing is questionable at best. Mostly, I get thrown off because all of the commenters and production facilities shown are in Canada, not to mention all of the questions from the consumers are from Canadians. The website dedicated to this clearly shows that it’s just a Canadian project. Are we meant to think then that it must be different here in the States?

image via mcdonalds.com

I’m not trying to be all America-is-the-best or anything, because I certainly am not that diehard patriot type, but c’mon, McDonald’s is an AMERICAN corporation. Why are they shying away from showing American facilities? Do they have something to hide that they do in America that they don’t do in Canada? It seems pretty obvious to me. Like how Mexican Coca-Cola is made with real sugar but American Coca-Cola uses high fructose corn syrup; is the American McDonald’s that much worse than the Canadian one? What is McDonald’s hiding here?

And why are comments disabled on all the videos? Real transparency, if they had nothing to hide, would allow anyone to discuss it. And they’d have people actually answering those questions, instead of cleverly crafted sentences and video clips to get a certain point across. All of that would just add fuel to the fire, I assume, and people would get more and more incensed.

I propose they let someone like me, a regular American, actually go into their facility and film a piece myself. That is what people are looking for. I’d happily sign a contract not to let any proprietary secrets out. We should be able to know what it is that we’re paying you to produce for us.

But let’s face it, I don’t eat McDonald’s personally for these very suspicions.

Curious about the french fry video? It’s right here:

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And here is the first one I watched, where a Canadian marketing person answers the question of Why McDonald’s Food Looks So Much Better in the Pictures.

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