… an absolute WHOPPER!

FOOD BUG:

Imagine you’ve stepped into a Kia new-car showroom and you point to a Carnival and say to the salesperson: “That’ll do me!”

And you’re so excited at the prospect of such a lovely car for your large family that you don’t pay attention when completing all the paperwork and paying for the vehicle and you return to the dealership to discover the big sales ribbon has been draped across the bonnet of a Kia Picanto sedan instead, because that’s what the Kia rep thought you were pointing at?

Half the size, right? Consumer laws shirley would give you some protection even if the mistake was largely yours. If not any legal recourse, at least a cooling period? A get out of jail card?

Strangely, something a little bit similar happens probably a million times a week at fast-food outlets around Australia and as far as we know a case as never been brought for deceptive and fraudulent advertising.

What’s cooling down as you would be quite in your rights to be a little hot under the collar over is the burger you got compared with the one you thought you were getting and there’s really fuck-all you can do about it. Carry on like a pork chop back at the counter? Some young thing who’ll probably be your geriatrician not too far down the track from now could care less.

Over the decades, we’ve taken the mickey out of McDonald’s and humiliated Hungry Jack’s over the advertised image of your burger of choice and what’s actually passed across the counter.
Some years ago, in Ballina of all places, we tore apart the summer offering of an earlier iteration of a tropical burger from Hungary Jack’s.

So when we rocked up to Hungry Jack’s at Boondall recently, that fast food outlet’s 2025 tropical version seemed the way to go.

After all, the instore imagery of this burger totally backed up the way the burger has been shown in TV ads over recent times.

And here’s what we collected.

We didn’t have a matchbox with us so here’s one with a small drink cup placed there for size comparison.

Some praise first. There were two pieces of pineapple used, although admittedly nothing like the two pieces in the promos that look like they’ve come straight out of a Golden Circle can of sliced pineapple.

The Ballina version many years had ONE piece of pineapple that took a while to identify as it looked like it had been sliced medically as a tissue sample being prepared for a microscope slide.

Back to 2025 now and the one beef pattie looked like it came from a cow on a diet.

Hold on! Does that Jack’s ad suggest two beef patties?

Separated by cheese? It most certainly does!

So why should the advertised product and what came across the counter the other night look so different? Forget the poorly drawn analogy I cooked up for the top. Surely some consumer law is being broken here when you get, what, less than half what was promised?

Would you be happy to pay for a carton of piss only to find two of the four six-packs missing? Imagine going to the chemist and paying for a box of those extra-large condoms he gets in for you, only to get home to find out they’d be the perfect fit for Donald Trump’s pathetic little pecker?

In the olden days, Hungry Jack’s and McDonald’s staff could argue that their burgers were pressed down a lot as they were being wrapped. They’re not wrapped anymore. Straight into a box so shouldn’t they look like the advertised product?

Anyone out there got the numbers for fair trading and/or the ACCC or various consumer protection agencies? We’re ready for a fair-dinkum bun fight.

Don Gordon-Brown

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