MOSCOW (AP) — Nearly a quarter-century after McDonald’s
startled and delighted Soviets with their first taste of American
fast-food culture, the company’s now facing a suit that could ban it
from selling some of its signature products.
The Russian consumer
protection agency said Friday it is taking the company to court for
selling foods that contain more fats and carbohydrates than are allowed
by national regulations.
McDonald’s did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The
suit comes amid especially high tensions between Moscow and Washington
over the Ukraine crisis; the United States has slapped an array of
sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine for
allegedly supporting separatist rebels who are fighting in eastern
Ukraine.
There’s no demonstrable connection between the McDonald’s
suit and the tensions, but the consumer protection agency,
Rospotrebnadzor, has a history of actions that appear to dovetail
Russia’s political agenda. As tensions between Russia and Georgia
escalated before their 2008 war, Russia banned the import of Georgian
wine and mineral water — two of its major export products — for failing
to meet sanitary norms. Last year, as tensions heated up over Ukraine’s
desire to sign a trade pact with the European Union, Russia banned
imports of chocolates made by the company of Petro Poroshenko, a tycoon
who supported the EU deal and is now Ukraine’s president.
Rospotrebnadzor said on its website that it brought the case after inspections of two of the company’s
restaurants in Novgorod.
According
to the statement, some food was found with microbial contamination and
several items had caloric values two to three times higher than allowed
by national regulations. Products that were mentioned for incorrect
nutritional information were cheeseburgers, Royal Cheeseburgers — the
local equivalent of the Quarter Pounder — fish sandwiches and several
milkshake varieties.
The suits asks that sale of McDonald’s
products that do not meet the regulations be declared illegal, but it
was not clear what penalty the company could face. The two restaurants
in Novgorod were to be fined 70,000 rubles ($2,100).
McDonald’s prompted the ire of Russian nationalists earlier this year after it closed its outlets in
Crimea.
The
animosity is a far cry from the fascination that Muscovites had for
McDonald’s when it opened its first outlet in the Soviet Union in 1990;
customers waited in hours-long lines to experience the efficient service
and reliable availability of items — rare novelties in the Soviet era.
After
the collapse of the USSR in 1991, other American and European chains
staked out their own territory. Russian malls now have food courts
virtually identical to America’s, except that Cinnabon, Sbarro and other
familiar names are written in Cyrillic.