Human tooth and filling found in french fries served at McDonald's outlets in Japan
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 08 January, 2015, 5:26am
UPDATED : Thursday, 08 January, 2015, 1:36pm
Agence France-Presse in Tokyo
McDonald's Japan executives Takehiko Aoki (right) and Hidehito Hishinuma bow in apologies at a press conference. Photo: AFP
A human tooth was served with french fries at a McDonald's in Japan last year, reports said yesterday, the latest in a series of recent woes involving contaminated nuggets and a chip shortage.
A customer complained to the Japanese arm of the fast food giant after finding foreign matter in a serving of potatoes from an outlet in Osaka, television networks said. The item had apparently been deep fried.
Independent investigations ordered by McDonald's determined that it was a tooth, broadcasters said, citing the results of the probe. A statement from McDonald's given to the woman, obtained by a television station, said the object was "believed to be a tooth".
"I received an apology only when the store manager came over," the customer, whose name was not revealed, told the JNN network. "The manager didn't really talk about how it got in and what action they will take in the future.
"I have a small child and it terrifies me to think that they could have eaten it and choked," she said.
The store manager who visited her said the tooth had been "fried", she reportedly said.
The Asahi network said it was not known how a tooth could have been mixed with the fries.
McDonald's said there were no employees missing a tooth at the outlet and it believed there was a very low possibility of contamination at the US factory that had shipped the chips.
"We deeply apologise for having caused considerable inconvenience and concern," Takehiko Aoki, senior vice-president of the company, said.
McDonald's has previously confirmed a customer found a piece of vinyl inside a chicken nugget sold by an outlet in the northern city of Misawa and that there was a similar case of contamination at a Tokyo branch.
A tiny piece of plastic was also found in a sundae in the city of Koriyama last month.
Those finds came after the burger giant was forced to switch nugget production to a Thai company in the wake of a food scare at a Chinese supplier.
And on Thursday authorities in southern Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture said they received a report in August last year of a metal fragment found in french fries sold at one of the restaurant chain’s stores.
The prefecture said health authorities in the city of Aira received a letter on August 22 last year containing the fragment and claiming that it was found in fries sold on August 3.
Authorities carried out an inspection of the store in question on August 26, calling for an investigation of the incident and issuing a verbal warning requiring the restaurant to be thorough with food safety.
According to the prefecture, McDonald’s Japan later reported that the metal piece was highly unlikely to have found its way into the fries during production or preparation, adding that analysis of the fragment showed it was probabya piece of metal used in dental fillings.
