Food Roundup: McCafe-Starbucks Battle Goes To Europe, Pringles Not Chips, And More

McDonald’s aims to overtake Starbucks in Europe — McDonald’s is expanding its McCafe across Europe, with plans to open hundreds of new stores by the end of the year. McDonald’s has been thriving in the current economy, while rival Starbucks has been closing stores and struggling to keep up profits. It seems likely that McCafe will have an easy time usurping Starbuck’s place as the biggest coffee chain in Europe. [Sources: Financial Times, Daily Bread, 24/7 Wall St.]

Fan thwarted by Starbucks closings — A Starbucks fanatic who has visited 9,000 Starbucks locations worldwide in the past 12 years now faces the challenge of reaching remaining stores on his list before they close. The company has announced 800 closures in the past year. The fan spent $1,400 to get to a store on the Starbucks hit list in British Columbia, saying, “If the store closed before I visited, I would lose another piece of my soul.” [Source: Wall Street Journal]

P&G dismayed at Pringles chips ruling — Procter & Gamble failed to persuade a British court that Pringles are not potato chips (or crisps, as they’re called there), a bizarre argument that would have saved P&G from paying a 15 percent Value Added Tax on the product. Procter & Gamble said the other ingredients rendered Pringles a ’savoury food,’ but the court countered that Pringles are still 42 percent potato, and thus qualify as potato chips. [Sources: Food Politics, Brand Freak, Daily Mail]

KFC says publicity fiasco had positive result — KFC says its bungled Oprah Winfrey promotion wound up benefitting the company, as it got more people to taste its new grilled chicken. The chain let customers download coupons good for free samples of the new product, but with Winfrey’s endorsement, there were so many takers that KFC couldn’t keep up and had to issue a rain-check. Nevertheless, sales are up since it happened, and KFC president Roger Eaton told AP, “The critical thing for us was to get people to eat the chicken, whatever it took.” [Sources: AP, BNET Food]