Revelation of “pork” in the Roast Beef Burger is sure to impact this crucial election.

A few days ago we reported on the kick-off of the Kanto vs Kansai burger election held by McDonald’s Japan. This contest will prove once and for all which region of Japan has the better cuisine, or at leastthe better cuisine-themed burger developed by McDonald’s.

It’s a high-stakes race in which coupons for the winner of the popular vote will be issued for about a week or so before both burgers are pulled from the menu in September. And then of course there’s the bragging rights.

However, the Tokyo campaign got off to rocky start by nominating “roast beef,” which is neither a Tokyo food nor Japanese food, its signature flavor. This drew criticism for playing to current trends rather than staying true to the Tokyo party’s platform.

Things only got worse as photos of actual Tokyo Roast Beef Burgers began to surface online with it not looking nearly as robust as its Kansai counterpart.

While not great for it’s image, a burger not turning out as plump and plentiful as its ads suggests is about as common as a politician not turning out as righteous and competent as their ads suggest. The Kansai Beef Katsu Burger was able to grab a slight advantage but the race was still tight. Also, most unflattering images of the Tokyo burger were accompanied by admissions that it was “very delicious.”

However, only a day later a new scandal hit the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger, this time suggesting that the “roast beef” in its name may not actually be beef at all!

Upon viewing its allergy information profile, an alert came up that the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger contains pork. Looking further into the fine print it says that the so-called “roast beef” is where the sneaky pork resides.

▼ Pork: Roast Beef

The burger’s description as written in their campaign literature uses some rather misleading language to make us believe otherwise:

“It’s a burger with juicy 100 percent beef and roast beef with the strong sensation of delicious meat sandwiched between two baguette style buns.”

While not explicitly saying the roast beef was 100 percent, by deceptively putting it right next to the description of the 100-percent all beef patty, it would be easy to connect the two on a subconscious level. Voters online felt the same and registered their displeasure.

“That’s fraud.”

“Maybe they named the pigs ‘beef’ before slaughtering them.”

“I didn’t think that looked like real roast beef.”

“100 percent beef just meant the patty? That’s fraudulent enough to bankrupt a small business.”

“Typical Tokyo lies… Just like Tokyo Disneyland which is really in Chiba Prefecture.”

“We should really let Muslim people know about this!”

Further investigation into the creation of the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger shows that its eponymous topping is actually made from a processed meat which includes both beef and pork. While that in itself is not such a shocking revelation from a fast food product, a burger simply can’t afford this kind of publicity during an election cycle. It also certainly doesn’t help that the commercial clearly shows images of actual roast beef being sliced.

Some die-hard Tokyo supporters suggested that the Japanese name rosuto bifu (roast beef) was actually meant to be rosu to bifu (pork roast and beef). It’s a compelling theory but about as easy to swallow as a pound of processed meat.

While the vote is only half-way to its 20 August deadline, its hard to image the Tokyo Roast Beef Burger can climb out of this hole. However, this scandal may cause overconfident Kansai Beef Katsu Burger supporters not to go out to the polls – or worse, throw their votes away on that third party candidate Filet-o-Fish.

Let’s hope not, because a couple of weeks under a clearly corrupt Tokyo Roast Beef Burger administration would be disastrous for Japanese fast food. And with North Korea threatening us with their own restaurants which serve fried chicken combos that come with really handy free plastic gloves, we may never recover.

Source: McDonald’s Japan, Itai News

Video, images: YouTube/McDonald’s Official, McDonald’s Japan