The Fast food chain McDonald’s has made the decision to remove tomatoes from its menus in most of its Indian outlets. McDonald’s India issued an official statement on Friday that it is dropping tomatoes from its menu due to a “temporary” issue. In the statement, which was issued on July 7, the spokesperson of McDonald’s India- North and East said that the fast food chain is “constrained to serve tomatoes” in its menu items due to “seasonal issues” in procurement. The Global Food Consumers’ Forum suggests that this issue can happen to any food business. The best way to avoid such a situation is to start contracted, co-operative farming and support farmer’s societies for their ingredient cultivation so that making price stability, constant supply, and quality control from the farm-to-fork level instead of solely depending on their approved suppliers
The company spokesman ( Mc Donald’s India) said, “We are committed to the highest standards of food quality and safety, we use ingredients only after rigorous food quality and safety checks. However, due to seasonal issues and despite our best efforts, we are not able to procure tomatoes that pass our world-class, stringent quality checks. Hence, we are constrained to serve tomatoes in our menu items at some of our restaurants. This is a temporary issue and we would like to reassure our customers that we are looking at all possible ways to bring back tomatoes to our menu very soon.”
While the company has not cited the lack of tomatoes in its menu to the rising prices but the price of tomatoes in India has skyrocketed due to heavy rainfall. Not just tomatoes, but the prices of other vegetables like cauliflower, chilies, and ginger too have shoot up.
This hard decision was taken by the business after reviewing supply chain issues, now Indian market experiences supply shortages and concerns over the quality of tomatoes, which have reached record-high prices. In certain regions, wholesale prices of tomatoes have surged by over 300% within a month, reaching Rs 260 rupees per kilogram this week. The skyrocketed price of tomatoes in the Indian market causes many consumers to reduce or avoid tomatoes in their home-cooked recipes. Consumers are bearing the brunt of the rising prices of tomatoes in the Northern part of India. People are not even willing to buy them. Heavy rains in some growing areas and hotter-than-normal temperatures last month hit the output of the crop, causing a fivefold increase in prices this year. Tomatoes usually become expensive in the lean production months of June and July, but the impact this year has been exaggerated
There many Indian food business struggle to add tomatoes to their menus. Many food businesses want to keep their same menu price rate to keep their consumers, but avoid costly tomatoes as an ingredient in their recipes or adding substitutes. The McDonald’s outlets in India want to keep prices, but remove tomatoes from their menus due to the scarcity of tomatoes in the market, quality concerns of available tomatoes, and the high price of procured tomatoes