Decade-old burger draws the crowds

On October 31, 2009, just before the restaurant’s closure, Hjortur Smarason bought a menu and last meal for historical value.

A decade after McDonald’s shut down in Iceland, thousands of online users follow the live slow decay of the last order – a seemingly indestructible burger with a side of fries protected in a glass case like a precious gem.

The American chain closed its only three branches in Iceland during the sub-arctic island’s financial crisis in 2009, making it one of the only western countries without a McDonald’s.

Smarason, who works as a communications manager for a company specialising in space tourism, said: “I had heard McDonald’s never decomposed so I wanted to see if it was true.”

He first kept the meal in his garage but then lent it to the National Museum of Iceland, after which it was moved to a hotel in the capital Reykjavik for a while.

Now the burger is on display like a work of art inside a glass case at Snotra House, a hotel in Thykkvibaer in southern Iceland. “People from around the world come here just to visit the burger,” Sigurdur Gylfason, the owner of the establishment, said. The hotel claims it receives up to

400 000 hits daily.

Addressing claims that its burgers appeared immune to decay, McDonald’s said in 2013 that “in the right environment, our burgers, like most other foods, could decompose”, adding that “moisture” was necessary. With sufficient desiccation, they were “unlikely to grow mold or bacteria or decompose”.

Bjorn Adalbjornsson, of the University of Iceland’s faculty of food science, confirmed this, adding that without moisture, “food will simply dry out”. –