McDonald's In Kazakhstan NOT Selling Horse Meat Burgers

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

Our sister publication Trendolizer's fast-food news desk picked up a trending story from RT.com about McDonald's opening a restaurant in Kazakhstan where they might put hamburgers made from horse meat on the menu.

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We have since been contacted twice by PR people from McDonald's to inform us the story is not true:

Dear colleagues,
Following the publication

First McDonald's in Kazakhstan to offer horse meat burger
Published time: 26 Feb, 2016

We would like to clarify that
McDonald's Kazakhstan will try in the future to adjust the menu to local customers tastes but
we will never sell any product containing horsemeat in McDonald's

Sincerely
Svetlana Polyakova
PR Director McDonald's Russia

And

Please note, the original story on rt.com has been updated so please can you update your copy accordingly? https://www.rt.com/business/333736-mcdonalds-kazakhstan-horse-burger/
Many thanks,
McDonald's press office

Apparently a quote was misinterpreted in the original RT.com story attributed to Kairat Boranbayev, owner of the restaurant:

"We are planning to launch 15 more outlets in Astana and Alma-Ata and expand the chain across the country," Boranbayev told journalists ahead of the official opening of the restaurant on March 8 in the capital Astana.

When asked by journalists whether the Kazakh McDonalds would consider offering traditional horse meat on the menu, Boranbayev said "We'll try to adjust our consumers' requests and cater to Kazakh national cuisine."

So to all Kazakh fast-food lovers out there looking for info on this story: don't gallop to conclusions, getting a horseburger at McDonald's is neigh impossible. We got that info straight from the horse's mouth!


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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