By: Ian Larson

Fast food companies have had their fair share of controversies. They have had problems with their food, leaders, ads, and more. Controversy can ruin companies completely, but these chains are still popular today.

McDonald’s had a controversy once because their coffee was too hot. A woman sued McDonald’s for almost 3 million dollars over their hot coffee being too hot. This case actually became pretty popular because of how ridiculous it sounds. It turns out that multiple people were actually injured because of how hot the coffee was. Stella Liebeck, the woman who was suing McDonald’s got 3rd degree burns from spilling the coffee and actually got hospitalized. McDonald’s decided to lower how hot their coffee is served to prevent future injuries.

There were people claiming that Taco Bell’s beef was only 35% meat. This would mean that their beef wouldn’t actually be beef according to USDA standards. However, Taco Bell quickly disproved these claims in their marketing, but this didn’t erase what people thought and they still have a reputation for fake meat.

Papa John’s is a fast food chain loved by many, but it turns out that “Papa John” wasn’t such a great guy after all. John Schnatter, AKA Papa John, was confirmed to have used the N-word on a conference call. John Schnatter decided to resign because of all of the hate coming towards him. This event scarred Papa John’s and made a lot of people think negatively about the chain.

One of the craziest controversies in fast food history was Krispy Kreme making poor choices with the letters they used. The donut shop Krispy Kreme decided to create a donut decorating club in the UK that they called the “Krispy Kreme Klub”. They promoted it to people calling it “KKK Wednesdays”. The abbreviation “KKK” is more often used to refer to the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group in the US. This promotion was made in the UK and was definitely unintentional but still was a very bad look for the company.