McDonald's Brazil named a burger McPicanha — it contained no picanha

When McDonald's Brazil launched its 'Novos McPicanha' sandwich line in April 2022, consumers quickly complained that the sandwich named after picanha — Brazil's prized barbeque cut — contained no picanha. The complaints reached four bodies at once: the Ministry of Justice's consumer arm Senacon, consumer protection agencies Procon-SP and Procon-DF, and advertising self-regulator CONAR, all of which demanded explanations over possibly misleading advertising.

The company said the platform's name referred to its 'exclusive picanha-flavoured sauce' and a different, bigger burger made of 100% beef from a blend of selected cuts. It did not hold: Procon-DF suspended sales of the sandwiches, Procon-SP set a 2 May deadline for answers on the advertising and composition, and the Justice Ministry gave McDonald's ten days to send clarifications.

On 28 April McDonald's apologised 'if the chosen name generated doubts', and the next night it went further: in an Instagram video it admitted 'we goofed on the name of our new sandwich', confirmed the line had been pulled from every restaurant in the country, and promised the sandwich — its biggest beef patty with the picanha-flavoured sauce — would return with a new name and the same taste.

In a beef-obsessed market, putting a famous cut's name on a burger that lacks it is an invitation every consumer can check with one bite.

The company's own defence — the name was about a flavoured sauce — confirmed the gap between what the name promised and what the bun held.

Four separate regulators engaging simultaneously turned a naming choice into a nationwide compliance problem within days.

Pulling the line nationwide and changing the name was a public admission, but it contained the story better than litigating the word 'picanha'.

Naming a product after a prized ingredient it does not contain makes the name itself the complaint — and regulators police the gap between label and recipe.

The sandwiches disappeared from menus and apps nationwide on 28-29 April 2022; McDonald's said the burger would return to the menu under a new name, keeping the recipe and the picanha-flavoured sauce.