A mum claims to have refused to eat her McDonald's breakfast after believing that somebody else had already tucked in to her hash brown.
After dropping her two kids off at school on Tuesday, April 26, Lana Taylor nipped to McDonald's in Alvis Retail Park, Coventry, for a takeaway sausage McMuffin and two hash browns,
She ate one of her hash browns while stopping at the lights on the drive home without any issue, but noticed something was up once she was back home at her desk.
To her horror, the 31-year-old noticed what she believed to be a "gross" bite mark in the second hash brown, and began to fear that somebody else had been helping themselves to her breakfast.
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Lana, from Coventry, said: "There was a bite taken out of it. It was really gross. I did think for a second 'should I just cut that bit off and eat the rest' but there's been a pandemic. I have a limit.
"Maybe they need a hash brown thief monitor in the kitchen. Maybe if I worked at McDonald's, I might [take a bite]. They're pretty delicious."
Disappointed Lana, who then had to start her day's work without having had her full meal, says she wasn't angry enough to drive back to the branch.
Taking to Twitter, she joked: "Aww @McDonaldsUK are so good. They even help you eat your hash brown. Who doesn't want a hash brown with a bite already taken out of it?"
After making an online complaint, Lana claims she is yet to hear back from McDonald's and says she has simply written off the let-down breakfast as a "99p loss".
McDonald's, which has since apologised for any inconvenience caused, has now said that it is "confident" that the hash brown had not been "tampered" with, suggesting that it had just ended up getting broken at some point during the cooking process.
Although Lana admits it could well be the case that the hash brown broke before it was deep-fried, she had believed that someone had bitten into it.
According to Lana: "I didn't really think about contacting Trading Standards. I wasn't even annoyed enough to drive back.
"McDonald's didn't get back to me either. I can't be 100% sure that it wasn't just broken. It's just one of those things I'm happy to write off as a 99p loss."
A McDonald's spokesperson has since given the following statement: "Food safety is of the utmost importance to us and we place great emphasis on quality control and follow rigorous standards in order to avoid any imperfections in our food.
"Having investigated the matter further we are confident that the hash brown was not tampered with before it left the restaurant and simply broke during the cooking process, we are sorry for this inconvenience.
"We would encourage the customer to contact our Customer Services team who can help find a resolution."
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