After Zomato got into the halal vs jhatka meat controversy recently, it is now McDonald's that has found itself in the spot. McDonald's is facing a boycott call, with #boycottmcdonalds trending after they said they serve halal meat in all their outlets. In response to a query, McDonald’s India replied that all their restaurants in India have a halal certificate and that the meat they use is of the highest quality.
Instantly, they faced backlash from users for serving halal meat, with many asking how they would cater to the Hindus and their food interests. McDonald's is being slammed for catering to less than '20 per cent' of the population in a non-Muslim majority country. Some users commented that eating halal meat was unacceptable for Hindus and Sikhs, and hence they were boycotting the food chain.
Some of them even commented, 'so, food has a religion', referring to food aggregator Zomato's epic comeback to a customer who purportedly cancelled an order because the delivery rider was a Muslim recently. Zomato had responded to the user by saying “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion.”
However, this response was followed by a call to boycott Zomato. Zomato also instantly faced backlash for featuring restaurants with the 'halal' meat tag, and rightwing handles criticised the food aggregator for not offering a tag for restaurants offering 'Jhatka' meat, which is meat from animals slaughtered in the Sikh tradition.