McDonald’s Denies Using ‘Secret Tricks’ to Give Customers Fewer Fries

McDonald's hasn't been lovin' it lately. As well as grappling with the ongoing issue of Millennials not being into Big Macs, the fast food chain recently saw its first ever UK workers strike. Those walking out were backed by Jeremy Corbyn and the Bakers, Food, and Allied Workers Union, and said that they were responding to issues including low-wages and zero-hour contracts.

And now the Golden Arches faces another accusation of unfair cost-cutting measures, thanks to a rumour started—like all great Internet gossip—on a Reddit discussion.

"What did your job ask you to hide from customers?" was posted four days ago in AskReddit and drew a number of responses from people claiming to be former McDonald's workers. Their confession? Maccie's uses underhand tactics to give customers fewer chips.

It started with a comment from ExperiMENTALbunny that read: "I worked at McDonald's and they taught me how to pinch the fry carton just right while putting the fries into them so that it looked full, but actually wasn't. I only had 1 customer call me out on it. He shook the fries out into his bag and poured them back into the fry carton himself and it only filled up half way, so I had to give him more fries."

Another Redditor also claiming to have worked for the chain backed up the existence of the carton-pinching practice, writing: "I fucking hated that practice and basically refused to do it. Never got fired, but managed to have a few customers ask me when my shifts were the next week so they could have me filling their fries."

A third, slightly more rebellious poster wrote: "I absolutely hated working at Maccies so I would overfill fry boxes as much as possible."

Despite these claims of portion-shrinking being limited to a handful of comments on an Internet forum, McDonald's is shook. As The Independent reports, a spokesperson for the company put out a statement that vehemently denies any such malpractice at its restaurants.

It said: "We believe these claims to be fictional, there are no 'secret tricks' and we have strict operational procedures in place to ensure that fry portions are not under-filled. Without a verified source we are unable to investigate this further. Our employees work hard to ensure our customers have the best experience possible in our restaurants, and we strongly refute any claims that suggest otherwise."

One way to ensure you get a decent serving of fries, every time? Make them yourself.