It’s a calm, quiet night at the McDonald’s chain that sits embedded in the pedestrian artery of Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul, Turkey. Aima Tahir, a student living in Istanbul, is one of thousands of people in Turkey who avoided shopping at the burger joints during the first two weeks of the war. “We are all hoping that the boycott will have an impact in stopping the genocide, and even if it doesn’t, I personally don’t want to spend my money on brands that sponsor the war.” In addition to continuing their punishment of multinationals with a presence in Israel, Aima and her friends donated several heads of cattle and goats to Gaza during the Eid al-Adha holiday last June. This trend is on the rise in Turkey and other countries in the region, where 60% of the 1,752 consumers surveyed by the state-run Areda Surveys agency say they have stopped buying products related to Israel.
This movement is not unique to Turkey. From New York to Jakarta, thousands of young people are expressing their solidarity with pro-Palestinian movements by punishing companies with alleged ties to Israel in response to the continuing conflict in the Gaza Strip. Ten months after the start of the war, the impact of the ban is already being felt in some Starbucks coffee shops and McDonald’s burger restaurants.
Brands targeted by activist organisations and frequently included on boycott lists include McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Coca-Cola, as well as KFC (owned by Yum! Brands), although the brands tend to vary from country to country. The affected companies on the list include European companies as well, although they are less affected by such bans: French supermarket chain Carrefour, German technology company Siemens, and French insurance company Axa, which this week withdrew its investments from Israeli banks.
Consumer boycotts of brands are becoming increasingly popular. A survey of 18,103 people from around the world by the consulting firm YouGov found that Indonesians are the most likely to boycott a brand for geopolitical reasons, at 53% of the total, followed by Denmark (52%), Sweden (49%), the United Kingdom (47%) and Australia (44%). In Spain, this figure is below the global average, at 37%.
In June, another YouGov poll found that 34% of Spanish respondents said they sympathised with the Palestinian cause, while 14% sided with the Israeli cause. 22% said they supported both, while 30% were undecided.
The boycott of large multinationals with ties to Israel has spread most strongly in Middle Eastern countries, where some consumers responded in October to calls from Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS), a pro-Palestinian organization whose main motive was to promote trade sanctions against multinationals with operations in Israel. The organization, which has been launching campaigns of this type for more than two decades, has gained prominence in recent months through calls to boycott large American companies with a presence in Israel through its social networks. It has moved its campaigns to North America, Asia and other markets. BDS and its Spanish delegation have refused to participate in this report and have avoided answering questions from this newspaper.
Aima joined the BDS-led boycott in the first two weeks of the war. Since then, she has only supported local businesses and has no plans to return to large global chains, although she admits that the punishment is largely symbolic. The young student has also stopped buying Coca-Cola products and has opted to drink alternatives such as ‘Le Cola’ at one of the 11,203 BIM franchises – a discount supermarket chain – spread across Turkey.
On the other side of the world, in Vancouver (Canada), another 23-year-old woman, who prefers not to be named by this newspaper for fear of repercussions for her job, joined the boycott of companies such as Pizza Hut, Walmart and Domino’s as “an accessible initial step” in January 2024, although she does not believe it has been enough to make a noticeable difference. “I think a lot of people are looking for ways to help, but they feel like they are falling short.” In Toronto, at the western tip of Canada, Katrina Ghali, 24, has gone from being a daily customer at Starbucks coffee shops to boycotting it since November 2023. “Before I went every day, but then I found out that they were supporting the Israeli state,” she says.
The company with the golden arches is among those most shaken by political vetoes. McDonald’s, the fast food giant, has been criticised for allegedly offering discounts and around 100,000 free meals to the Israeli army. It has fallen 3% on the stock market since 2023. Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s CEO, acknowledged in early May that the war has had a negative impact on its business in the Middle East, among other markets. Through a post on LinkedIn, he called the move “disheartening and ill-founded”. This drop in sales led Alonyal, the brand’s Israeli subsidiary, to declare its intention to sell 225 of its franchises to the parent company.
“In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is represented by local operators who work tirelessly to serve and support their communities,” the executive said. The business in Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country, sued the BDS organisation for $1.3 million (1.3 million euros) in January and explained that although they respect the act of boycotting, they believe that “it should be based on facts and not allegations.”
Perhaps the multinational most affected by the boycott is the American coffee chain Starbucks, although the trigger in this case was not the calls by activist groups, but a lawsuit against its union, Workers United. The lawsuit arose after the union expressed its solidarity with Palestine on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter). Starbucks, in addition to noticing a drop in its profitability in the second quarter of the year, with a drop in global sales of 4%, also lost up to 27% of its share price on the US stock exchange in May.
The firm’s previous CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, insisted that “Starbucks is for humanity” and that the company has “no political agenda.” Narasimhan, who had been in charge of the chain for just a year, was replaced a week ago by Brian Niccol, the former CEO in charge of the fast-food chain. Tex-Mex, Chipotle. The strategic signing of Niccol has reduced the stock market losses in the last year to just 3%.
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