Tempers bubbled on Twitter on Thursday because the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea allegedly wants to do without bubbling French fries across the board in order to protect the climate. The reason for the assumption was a notice from an Ikea restaurant that was circulating as a photo on the Internet. It reads: “We deliberately do without fries” because they use too much CO₂ in processing and preparation.
According to the German Ikea management, there is no perfidious re-education plan in favor of boiled potatoes behind the notice. Instead, it is the lonely decision of a furniture store branch in Würzburg. In Germany there are “currently no plans to remove French fries from the range,” said a company spokeswoman. In contrast to the Swedish meatballs called “Köttbullar”, however, fries are not part of the fixed Ikea range, which is why it is up to the local locations to offer them or not.
According to the spokeswoman, however, only the furniture stores in Würzburg and Bremerhaven currently do not offer French fries. It is not known whether the decision in Bremerhaven was a culinary one or a decision motivated by other reasons. The remaining 52 Ikea branches in Germany continued to have fries in their range. From the Fritten front in Ikea Berlin-Tempelhof, for example, “Bild” reporter Kira Ortmann gave the all-clear on Thursday morning: “Fruits!!!”, she reported there.
Can these pictures calm the waves? In any case, Ikea announced that the group was “far away from lecturing customers”. Instead, in the Swedish liberal tradition, the group seems to focus on choices: “We are not interested in restricting our food range, but in adding many healthier and more environmentally friendly options”. Even the Swedish balls are now available in vegetarian and vegan versions.