McDonald's Food War!!!

FMCG businesses are generally in classification disputes to save taxes. McDonald's is one of them who went on war with Excise Dept. to prove that Soft-serve is not an Ice-cream but a dairy product!!

It was argued that ‘soft serve’ cannot be referred to as "ice-cream" even by applying the common parlance test, in as much as ‘soft serve’ is sold throughout the world not as “ice-cream” but only as ‘soft serve’. "Ice- cream", the world over, is commonly understood to have milk fat content around 10% whereas ‘soft serve’ does not contain milk fat of more than 5%.

The court dismissed the company's argument. Rejecting this claim, the court said that such a hard and fast definition of a culinary product like ice-cream, which has seen constant evolution and transformation, is untenable.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the 'soft serve' sold at McDonalds India's outlets should be classified as ice-cream for the purpose of determining excise duty, upholding the excise department's claim.