McDonald's Restaurants (Taiwan) Co yesterday celebrated sales of its home-grown rice burgers, which topped 5 million units six months after hitting the market, saying the local taste may be available in McDonald's worldwide soon.
"By combining Western and Eastern flavors, we created the most successful homemade product, which has the chance to debut on McDonald's menus around the globe," Steven Lee (
The fast-food chain started offering two types of toasted rice burgers, with a choice of either chicken or beef sandwiched between rice buns, in February this year. The items soon became one of the firm's best-sellers with a fresh taste, said Shalom Chen (陳家祥), senior manager at communications division of McDonald's Taiwan.
The overwhelming result boost McDonald's Taiwan's confidence, and therefore the company introduced the taste to representatives of McDonald's from all over the world at an enterprise global meeting in April this year, Chen said.
Since the tryout, officials from McDonald's in other countries have showed high interest in the product and visited Taiwan to learn about it, she said.
The product also caught the eye of McDonald's chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific, who introduced the rice burgers at a McDonald's Analyst Meeting held in Wall Street this month, pushing the item to higher attention, she said.
McDonald's Taiwan has developed several products in the past, including Japanese style pork burger, kimchi burger, grain burger and others, but none of the products have had the success of the rice burgers, Chen said.
"I think, as rice is a principal food in Taiwan and Asia, the burgers obviously appeal to a large group of rice lovers," Chen said.
As consumers now have higher awareness of healthy diet, the items' comparative low calories became another selling point of the rice burgers, Chen said.
With a weight of 223g, rice burgers have 378 calories each, while a Big Mac, with a weight of 215g, has 529 calories, she said.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the