McDonald’s have recently released an intercultural case study centred on how icons (designed to represent nutritional information) were culturally evaluated for worldwide use. The junk food giant took its 'Nutritional Initiative' to all of its markets by visually representing nutritional information on food packaging globally.

The main challenge was to develop icons or images that would communicate, with or without language, in over 109 different global locations without offending any local cultural sensitivities. McDonald’s is making the final nutritional icons freely available to the food and restaurant industries worldwide, hoping to help set a standard for visually conveying nutritional information.