McDonald's food safety scandal in Japan where debris including a human tooth and pieces of plastic has been found in some meals served at Japanese McDonald's outlets since last August. The discoveries prompted senior executives to apologize Wednesday for the miscues.
The Japanese division of McDonald's apologized to its customers on Wednesday for the contaminants found in its chicken McNuggets and French fries.
"We caused concern to many of our customers due to the incidents where foreign objects got mixed up with our products. I hereby express our deepest apologies. We are extremely sorry," said Takehiko Aoki, the vice president of Mcdonald's Holdings Company, Japan.
Aoki's apology came after a human tooth was found in an order of French fries last August and a piece of metal was spotted in a muffin in September. In addition, a child was injured in December because of a bit of plastic that was in the youngster's chocolate sundae.
Most recently came two cases of plastic pieces being found in Japanese chicken McNuggets shipped from a plant in Thailand. Those two cases prompted McDonald's to halt sales of McNuggets made on the same day as the plastic pieces were discovered. McDonald's is still investigating the cause.
"It's not completely impossible that a tooth could fall out and so we are getting employees to wear masks or conduct proper checks. By doing that, we look to make sure that things that shouldn't happen don't," said Takehiko Aoki.
McDonald's Japan sought to reassure the public about the safety of its food during a crowded news conference but denied that the discoveries are indicative of an overall quality-control problem. McDonald's called the cases "isolated" incidents but not all of its Japanese customers agree.
"I don't think I will go eat at McDonald's ever again. Never," said a Japanese citizen.
"For good or bad, McDonald's is a well known brand. But such things are really not good. I hope they could pay more attention to it in the future," said another citizen.
McDonald's is popular in Japan and the burger chain operates more than 3,000 restaurants in the country. But since mid 2014, McDonald's have decreased substantially and deficits were reported for the first time in 11 years.
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