Fury as McDonald’s temporarily removes orange juice from Australian menu

The fast-food giant has been accused of “doing the sneaky again” on a much-loved product, temporarily switching it for a controversial alternative.

McDonald’s has temporarily removed a popular beverage from its menu, replacing it with an alternative in a move that has angered some fans.

Popular food blogger Russ Eats revealed orange juice was no longer on sale in an expletive-laden video shared to social media on Wednesday. In its place is an “orange fruit drink”.

The Newcastle-based foodie – who has amassed a following of more than 64,000 on Instagram – declared the fast-food giant had “f**ked with an original again without even telling us – they’ve done another sneaky,” referring to their shift from Sprite to Sprite No Sugar last October.

“It was f**ked. In my opinion, it’s just as bad as switching the cheeseburger patty for a [plant-based] Beyond Meat patty and not telling us – a f**king dog move,” Russ said of the soft drink switch.

“Now, what they’ve done this time is f**ked with our orange juice. You mightn’t care, but I don’t drink Macca’s coffee because it tastes like burnt pubes. So I get an orange juice with my breakfast.

“What they’ve done is change it to ‘orange fruit drink’ – which mightn’t sound like much, but there’s a very sneaky reason I think they’ve done this.”

Popular food blogger Russ Eats revealed orange juice was no longer on sale in an expletive-laden video shared to social media on Wednesday. Picture: Instagram

Fruit drink – which 'is about 35 per cent juice, and [producers] make it cheap as f**k by stretching it out with sugar'. Picture: Instagram

Russ then went on to compare the merits of juice – “old-fashioned, you get the fruit, you squeeze it, you get the juice out” – and fruit drink – which “is about 35 per cent juice, and [producers] make it cheap as f**k by stretching it out with sugar”.

“And that’s exactly what they’ve done here … Macca’s has kept the same [orange juice] price but introduced a cheaper alternative,” he said.

“In my opinion, it’s probably worse than the Sprite No Sugar. They made out they were removing sugar for our health, but then they go and f**king add it when it suits them? This p*sses me off.”

Upon tasting the alternative beverage, he declared it had “no tang” and was “super sweet, like a cordial”.

A McDonald’s Australia spokesperson confirmed the fruit drink substitution isn’t a permanent change. Picture: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images

A McDonald’s Australia spokesperson confirmed to news.com.au the fruit drink substitution (thankfully) isn’t a permanent change.

“We have experienced some delays in our regular supply of orange juice and are temporarily switching to an equally refreshing alternative to ensure customers can still enjoy choice in our menu,” they said in a statement.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and thank customers for their patience, while we work to get our regular orange juice back on the menu as soon as possible.”

The switch hasn’t gone down well with other customers, either.

“I THOUGHT MY ORANGE JUICE WAS WEIRD GOD DAMN IT,” one commented on Russ’s video.

“It tastes like cr*p,” another agreed. “I want OJ not cordial.”

“That would explain why it tastes so awful now,” a third said.

Originally published as Fury as McDonald’s temporarily removes orange juice from Australian menu