Tag Archives: Kfc

KFC fined thousands over food hygiene

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The KFC double down sandwich may be all the rage among dieters and gluttons, but one outlet in London should pay more attention to food safety practices.

As a reminder, a U.K. court fined Kentucky Fried Chicken almost STG19,000 on Monday after a cockroach was found eating a chip in one of its busiest branches in Britain.

The insect was seen on a food dispensing counter near takeaway boxes and tongs used to serve chicken by an environmental health officer in a restaurant in London’s West End.

City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that during an inspection at the Leicester Square branch, the officer also saw a mouse, flies and dried chicken blood on the floor.

The Westminster City Council inspector also said there was no hand wash in dispensers in the food preparation area.

KFC admits hygiene breaches at UK branch

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Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is now food safety quality assured. See, it says so on this lid from a bucket of grease.

But today, the chain admitted breaching hygiene rules at one of the busiest branches in Britain, telling a hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in central London it had inadequate pest control at a branch in Leicester Square, central London.

Environmental health inspectors from City of Westminster Council said cockroaches, mice and flies were found during an inspection of the premises in Coventry Street on August 15 last year.

KFC said it also admitted failing to provide hygienic facilities for handwashing and failing to keep the restaurant clean and in good order during today’s hearing.
 

Kentucky Fried cockroach in Ontario?

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The Toronto Sun reports that a KFC in Maple, Ontario, is being probed by health officials after a Richmond Hill man said he found a roach embedded in the bottom of a sandwich he ordered Friday night.

Appropriately enough the sandwich was the Big Crunch.

Michael McNamara, 28, its unlucky recipient, was big-time bugged by the nasty find.

“I didn’t see on the underside that there’s a cockroach mashed into the bun. Basically I ordered the food and once I saw it I immediately yelled at my buddy, ‘don’t eat here, stop what you’re doing!’”

York Region Community and Health Services spokesman Monica Bryce confirmed a health inspector had paid a visit to the KFC restaurant Saturday after McNamara’s complaint.

“We didn’t find any evidence that warranted closing the restaurant, but we did find one infraction,” Bryce said, adding inspectors found one pest-control trap with a dead roach in it.

Campbell, KFC won’t buy spent hens, but US school lunch program will

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Colonel Sanders and KFC won’t buy them.

Campbell Soup stopped using them more than a decade ago because of "quality considerations."

Yet as reported in today’s USA Today, the U.S. National School Lunch Program is an awesome outlet for egg producers struggling to find a market for 100 million egg-laying hens culled each year.

From 2001 through the first half of 2009, USA TODAY found, the government spent more than $145 million on spent-hen meat for schools — a total of more than 77 million pounds served in chicken patties and salads. Since 2007, 13.6 million pounds were purchased.

Because the hens are usually restricted to tiny cages, they often suffer from osteoporosis and have especially brittle bones that easily splinter. When schools reported bones in the chicken, the government stopped purchases for school meals in April 2003. After new provisions aimed at preventing bone splinters — and lobbying by the trade group, United Egg Producers — purchases resumed that July.

Besides the bones issue, some scientists believe spent-hen meat is more likely to carry salmonella, which can be especially dangerous for children. A 2002 study by Washington State University’s Avian Health and Food Safety Laboratory found that spent-hen carcasses were four times more likely than broilers to be contaminated with salmonella. The spent hens in the study were from a single plant, so the results offer no proof that similar problems occur on a broader scale. …

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture say spent-hen meat is safe and nutritious. "Mature hens must comply with the same safety standards as any other chicken processed and sold to consumers," says Rayne Pegg, head of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.

Still, the USDA is buying fewer spent hens today. In 2006, it purchased 30% of all spent hens processed nationwide; now, it buys less than 10%.

Craig Brooks, who oversees food distribution at the South Carolina education department, isn’t sorry to see fewer spent hens.

"The taste just didn’t go over."
 

Rats, mice and cockroaches, oh my – UK KFC needs to clean up

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KFC may be dabbling with marketing food safety (see the lid from a bucket of chicken), but marketing has to be backed up with data. And having a lousy restaurant inspection report will turn anyone’s stomach, no matter how many checkmarks are on things.

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is being prosecuted after environmental health inspectors reported finding cockroaches, mice and flies at one of its busiest UK restaurants.

Officials from Westminster Council said that a cockroach scurried across a counter when they visited the fast food outlet in Leicester Square, central London.

They claimed a mouse was seen running across the floor and flies buzzed around their heads at the Coventry Street premises, Press Association reports.

In total, KFC faced 13 charges brought under food hygiene regulations following an inspection on August 15 last year. It has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

KFC condiment kerfuffle

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A 26-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday night by police in Surprise, Arizona, after she allegedly tried to back over a KFC employee with her car because her meal was served sans condiments.

Surprise police said the woman was at the drive-through of a KFC when the argument began because employees failed to provide condiments with her meal.

She entered the KFC and had a verbal exchange with an employee about 7 p.m. Employees ordered the woman to leave the building and a KFC employee followed her out of the building and stood behind her vehicle to get a license plate number.

That’s when she apparently decided to put the car in reverse. And then she did it again.

The woman was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct.
 

Sydney KFC sued for $10 million after 7-year-old develops Salmonella and brain damage in 2005

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Monika Samaan was seven years old when she collapsed and was rushed to hospital with salmonella poisoning after eating a Twister from the Villawood KFC outlet in Sydney’s south west in October 2005.

She has acquired spastic quadriplegia and a profound intellectual disability.

Today, Monika arrived at the New South Wales Supreme Court in a wheelchair (right) as her just over $10 million lawsuit against KFC got underway.

The family’s lawyer, Anthony Bartley SC, told the court in his opening address that Monika had been an extremely bright and active young girl before her illness.

Bartley said there was little doubt Monika’s illness was caused by salmonella on the chicken she ate, adding, "You will hear unsettling and disturbing practices in the kitchen, including the kitchen KFC operated at its Villawood store.”

To keep up with orders and deliver them with speed to customers, KFC’s "young, enthusiastic" staff would frequently help each other out. But by manning different work stations, the staff could easily have transferred bacteria from raw chicken to the cooked product, he added.

Sydney KFCs fined $73,000 for filth

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Franchisee QSR Pty Ltd, the owner of two KFC restaurants in Sydney’s south, has been convicted of 11 charges of breaching food hygiene laws between May 2007 and February 2008 and has been fined $73,000.

NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said the potential health issues were compounded by the fact the company ignored directives to lift its game.

Inspectors discovered the problems after a complaint from a member of the public.

Mr Macdonald said the case was a "textbook example" of how consumer complaints helped inspectors police food safety in NSW.

But KFC defended QSR Pty Ltd, saying the breaches were just a "temporary breakdown" in standards.

KFC — Food Safety Assured (right).
 

Three California KFC employees take a dip in restaurant’s sink

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Don’t slaughter goats in the restaurant kitchen; don’t moon drive-through customers at the Dairy Queen, and don’t make your girls gone wild demo tape in the commercial dishwashing sink at the KFC where you work.

Three Anderson, California girls (right) decided to go for a dip in the sink at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken, and one of the girls thought only her close friends who would never tell would see the pics so she decided to share on MySpace.

The Redding Record Searchlight reports the photos had been filed under a gallery called “KFC moments.” Captions for the photos included “haha KFC showers!” and “haha we turned on the jets.” …

Although the pictures were available to the public earlier today, all of the photos on the girl’s site were restricted to private viewers tonight.

Kentucky Fried Chicken marketing food safety

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I must have been in grade 11.

The object – no, not an object, the girl — of my affection worked part-time at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken in Brantford, Ontario (that’s in Canada).

We’d meet after work, and ever since, the Colonel’s secret spices have held a special place.

In university and afterwards, I always seemed to live within smelling distance of the Kentucky version of deep-fried chicken thingies. And then there was the moving ritual: who hasn’t changed residences without a bucket of the Colonel and a case of beer to pay off the movers? (I’m thanking you, Marty)

It’s been a long time, but driving back from Des Moines Sunday morning with Amy, I was suddenly struck with the KFC urge. It was gross, although the corn-on-the-cob was as good as I remember when Chapman and I got a similar meal in upstate New York before crossing the border into Canada — no corn-on-the-cob in Canadian KFC, at least not in 2003 – returning from a golf trip I was particularly grateful for.

And now KFC is marketing food safety.

Maybe they have been for a long time. I apparently only visit during nostalgia trips.  But there it is, right there on the Colonel’s bucket: rigorously inspected; thoroughly cooked; quality assured.

Now, can I get that same assurance on the cole slaw – the cabbage-containg cole slaw that led to an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in 1998 and again in 1999 at KFCs in Indiana and Ohio?