uNext Up For McDonald’s Revamped Menu: McMuffins, Biscuits & Bagels With Real Butterr

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  (Morton Fox)

  A month after McDonald’s officially beefed up its Quarter Pounder, the fast food giant is poised to makeover a few other staples: the English muffin, bagel and biscuit, adding real butter to the ingredient list.

  NBC News, citing two sources close to the matter, reports that the switch to the upgraded breakfast items would occur once locations use up their supply of liquid margarine.

  While the Golden Arches hasn’t officially confirmed its plans to change the bread items, some stores have already started posting signs about the switch.

  A location in Manhattan reads: “We’re proud to cook breakfast items on the grill with real butter and we toast our English Muffins, biscuits and bagels with real butter, too.”

  One of the sources tells NBC News that the signs are meant to both highlight the use of real dairy products and warn customers who may have dairy allergies not to consumer them.

  McDonald’s has been on a roll lately, making changes to its menu. In addition to changing its breakfast breads and beefing up its Quarter Pounder, the fast food giant announced earlier this year it would toast buns and make changes to the way it sears its beef.

  The menu revamp is part of the company’s turnaround effort under new CEO Steve Easterbrook.

  McDonald’s Continues Menu Tweaks: This Time It’s the McMuffin [NBC News]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uStore-Brand Frozen Corn Recalled For Potential Listeria Contaminationr

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• Time to check your frozen vegetable stash: bags of frozen corn sold as store private-label brands that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes have been recalled by the company that packaged it. Some of the corn was distributed to Save-A-Lot discount grocery stores and to Market Basket stores, but two of the brands were not exclusive to any one retailer.

  No illnesses have been reported: the pathogen turned up during routine testing in Tennessee. Affected corn may have been distributed to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

  Here are the affected brands:

  Wylwood (Save-A-Lot) and Market Basket corn was distributed in 1-pound bags, with a “best before” date of June 2017.

  

  

  Bountiful Harvest and West Creek corn was distributed in 2.5-pound bags, with a “best before” date of June 2017.

  

  

  If you have the product in your home, throw it away, and contact the company, Bonduelle USA, at 1-877-990-2662 if you want a refund.

  Experts recommend heating food to an internal temperature of 160 degrees, which does kill Listeria. Freezing does not kill the bacteria, which is why it’s been such a nefarious presence in ice cream and in frozen vegetables this year.

  Listeriosis is especially dangerous to people who are very young, people who are elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and pregnant women. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.

  Bonduelle USA Recalls Frozen Corn Because Of Possible Health Risk [FDA]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFiat Chrysler Offers $100 Gift Cards To Get Your Recalled Car Fixed Alreadyr

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• The federal government has fined Fiat Chrysler $105 million for its failure to address vehicle defects and active recalls, and perhaps they’ve concluded that customers will respond to a cash incentive, not a cash punishment. Taking a break from desperately hugging General Motors, today the automaker announced an offer: car owners get $100 if they bring their vehicle in for repair, and an extra $1,000 or $2,000 trade-in incentive to buy a new car instead.

  The company hopes that offering money or trade-in incentives encourages people who own affected cars to bring their vehicles in for replacement. If the owners traded in recalled Jeep Grand Cherokees from the ’90s or Jeep Libertys from the ’00s for brand-new vehicles, the company certainly wouldn’t complain.

  Part of the company’s punishment from NHTSA was for not making needed parts for the repairs available: if they’re bribing people to come in and get their cars fixed, the parts must be available now.

  To find out whether your vehicle is eligible for the program, grab your VIN and check the Fiat Chrysler site, or check NHTSA’s site, safercar.gov. Remember that if you’ve bought a used car recently, even if it was sold to you as “Certified,” check with the NHTSA database and with the manufacturer to make sure there aren’t any active recalls.

  Fiat Chrysler offers $100 debit cards to owners of recalled U.S. vehicles [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uAt This Restaurant, Eat Quinoa With No Human Interactionr

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  (Eatsa)

  Would you eat in a restaurant where you don’t interact with the employees at all? There’s a new restaurant that’s either the next frontier in segregating our society by wealth, or an efficient way to grab a quick bowl of quinoa. Diners order and pay for their meals using tablet computers, then pick them up from glass cubbies, like a neo-automat.

  Time for a brief consumer history class: automats, are restaurants that consist solely of vending machines; they’ve existed in different forms in different countries, but the most familiar to Americans would be the Horn & Hardart chain in major cities. The automated cafeterias had high-quality meals and desserts in little cubbies behind glass doors, and customers bought them using coins for each individual item.

  Eatsa, a new restaurant in San Francisco, is the latest restaurant to revive the idea, using tablets to take orders, then serving the meals in cubbies with translucent screens on the front, where the customer’s name pops up.

  The future of dining at @eatsa http://pic.twitter.com/FJ6GjxXNr8

  — Lucas Matney (@Lucas_Matney) August 29, 2015

  SFGate calls it a “fully automated restaurant,” but it really isn’t. A fully automated restaurant would have robots making the food, and we’ll get there soon enough. At Eatsa, there are employees making the food. They stay invisible on the other side of the wall, though, so you can pretend that you’re in a robot-run establishment. The food is vegetarian, based on quinoa, and early visitors gave it good reviews, especially for the price. There are eight items on the menu each day, each of which costs $7.

  Fast food reinvented? Eatsa, a fully automated restaurant, opens today (via NPR)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uTennessee Authorities Investigating Allegations Of Animal Cruelty At Chicken Farm Dumped By Tyson, McDonald’sr

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  (Chris Goldberg)

  Last week, Tyson Foods and McDonald’s said they were cutting ties with a poultry farm in Tennessee that was accused by an animal rights group of mistreating and abusing chickens. Authorities in that state now confirm they’re looking into the allegations of criminal animal cruelty by operators of the farm.

  Tyson sourced the meat it sold to McDonald’s for chicken McNuggets from the farm in question. Last week the company announced it would no longer get its chickens from the Tennessee Farm, after Mercy for Animals published undercover video footage that reportedly showed chickens being beaten and stabbed with a pole that has a spike on it, as well as sick and deformed chickens mixed in with healthy birds in a huge, over-crowded holding area.

  Mercy for Animals had asked Tennessee authorities to prosecute the owners of T&S Farm for violation of state laws prohibiting animal cruelty.

  “The case is currently under investigation,” said Colin Johnson, assistant district attorney for Obion and Weakley County, where the farm is located, in a statement to USA Today.

  Both McDonald’s and Tyson issued statements last week decrying animal abuse.

  “We believe treating animals with care and respect is an integral part of a responsible supply chain and find the behavior depicted in this video to be completely unacceptable. We support Tyson Foods’ decision to terminate their contract with this farmer,” McDonald’s said at the time. “We’re working with Tyson Foods to further investigate this situation and reinforce our expectations around animal health and welfare at the farm level.

  Tenn. authorities investigating ex-McDonald’s chicken supplier for cruelty [USA Today]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uIllinois Can’t Pay Its Lottery Winners Right Nowr

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  (frankieleon)

  Current lottery winners in Illinois might have to delay their joyful reactions for a little while. The state hasn’t passed a new budget, which means that they’re unable to pay lottery winners whose prizes are $25,000 or more. That’s a total of 29 lottery winners still waiting for their money since the current fiscal year started on July 1st.

  Without a state budget in place, lottery officials can’t legally pay out big prizes. Prizes under $25,000 can be paid at a person’s local lottery claim center, and prizes under $600 can be cashed in at a store that sells lottery tickets.

  It’s not the most serious consequence of the state budget crisis by any means, but frustrating for winners who have been handed a great big ceremonial cardboard IOU. The state comptroller’s office cuts checks for $25,000 or above, and lottery winners aren’t happy.

  “I bought the ticket, I should get the money when it’s due to me,” a man who won $250,000 on a scratchoff game told TV station WLS. “I shouldn’t have to wait for some budget to be settled.” Unfortunately, that’s not how bureaucracies work.

  Illinois lottery winners are in limbo [CNN]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uJewel-Osco: Payment System Outage Could’ve Caused Multiple Charges On Customers’ Cardsr

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  (Payton Chung)

  If you shopped at Jewel-Osco recently and used your credit or debit card to pay, you might want to check your accounts and make sure you weren’t charged multiple times for one transaction: the grocery chain confirmed on Monday that its payment system suffered a glitch that could’ve caused some customers to be overcharged for their purchases.

  Though Jewel isn’t saying how many customers may have been affected, it confirmed to the Chicago Tribune that “some” customers could’ve had issues.

  “Late last week, our third-party payment processor notified us that there was a payment system outage which resulted in some customers’ debit and credit cards inadvertently being charged twice or more for one transaction,” a Jewel spokeswoman told the Tribune. “We are investigating this issue with the processor, and we deeply regret any issues that customers may have experienced as a result of this.”

  One woman was frustrated to find that she ended up getting hit with additional charges on her card after she bought $306.45 worth of groceries on Friday, and had trouble with the transaction going through. The cashier had her repeatedly swipe her card, she says, up to about six times. A manager eventually got involved and had her swipe the card three times — once for $106.45 and two times each for $100.

  The next day, she found her bank account had been charged an extra $100, and said Jewel told her the charge would be reversed within two days. But on Sunday she found more surprises in her bank account: she hadn’t been credited for that $100 overcharge, and was also hit with $306.45 in increments of $106.45, $100.00 and $100.00. Needless to say, she’s still not happy that she’s paid more than $700 now for $300 worth of groceries.

  “I am going to have checks bounce and get non-sufficient funds charges posted to my account and have my other payments and debits affected,” she said, adding that Jewel should’ve posted a notice notifying customers about the processing.

  Shopper says Jewel debit glitch cost her $400 [Chicago Tribune]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist