It is the standard fast food across the Middle East: balls of ground chickpeas tossed into vats of sizzling oil and served with pickles and salads inside a pitta bread.

But the ubiquitous family-owned falafel street stalls and small cafes faced a challenge earlier this year when McDonald’s introduced the “McFalafel”, the global burger chain’s own version of the Middle East staple, in all its Israeli restaurants.

Now, in a rare admission of defeat, it is withdrawing the McFalafel, saying it was an experiment that did not work.

“We realised that falafel doesn’t belong in McDonald’s,” Omri Padan, chief executive of McDonald’s Israel told the news website Ynet. “We wanted a vegetarian dish … but it didn’t succeed. The falafel dish is gradually being removed from the restaurants.”