Iceland’s last McDonald’s burger is five years old and showing no signs of decay

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Last McDonald's burger in Iceland goes on display 0:57

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The last McDonald's cheeseburger and fries is on display in a hostel in Iceland after McDonald's closed all stores in the country.

• news.com.au
• 03 Feb 2015
• News/World

A live webcam offers people an opportunity to watch the meal decay. But it looks virtually the same as the day it was purchased. Picture: Reykjavik Bus Hostel. Source: Supplied

THIS McDonald’s burger looks exactly the same as the day it was ordered.

Five years later, it hasn’t aged a bit.

Hejortur Smarason purchased the meal in 2009 after learning McDonald’s would be closing its doors in the northern European country for the last time.

But instead of devouring it and savouring the moment, he decided to keep it to see how long it would last.

But even he was surprised to find that five years later, the burger and fries looks exactly the same on the day he bought it.

The golden arches announced it would close all three franchises at midnight on October 31, 2009 saying the “operational complexity of doing business in Iceland combined with the very challenging economic climate in the country” made business there unviable.

The GFC caused Iceland’s banks to collapse and relying on a $US10 billion aid package to survive.

And while the economy may have suffered a decay, the burger meal, hasn’t as Smarason’s little experiment has shown.

He said he decided to try the experiment because he wanted to see if rumours he heard about McDonald’s food not decaying were true.

“I had heard some­thing about McDonald’s never decaying so I just wanted to find out for myself whether this was true or not,” he told Icelandic paper mbl.is.

And it has indeed stayed perfectly preserved.

After keeping it in a plastic bag for three years, he decided to donate the meal to the National Museum of Iceland, where it was displayed.

The museum then returned it to him, and he then passed it to his friends who run the Bus Hostel Reykjavik, where it now sits proudly on show.

However, the hostel have gone one better and set up a webcam so “people can watch it decay” — the only problem being it doesn’t appear to change at all so you’re in for a long show.

“Now it will be on display at Bus Hostel Reykjavik in Iceland, not only for those who drop in, but also with a live video stream where you watch the hamburger rot and decay on live camera,” the hostel warns.

“You might have to be patient though to see any changes.”

But the Icelandic man may not be the first person to put this to the test and probably won’t be the last.

American man David Whipple kept a McDonald’s burger for 14 years and found it looked the same as the day it was cooked.

Mr Whipple, from Utah, said he bought the burger back in 1999 and had originally planned to keep it for a month to demonstrate the power of preservatives and never expected it to last as long as it did.

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