McDonald’s
has been left reeling after a second of their Coventry outlets was fined in the space of a
week.
This time it was the company’s Alvis Retail Park restaurant that was in court
after a customer found a ballbearing in an ice-cream sundae.
The news comes just days after the restaurant in Wigston Road, Walsgrave incurred a
£9,500 fine for having sewage leaking into food storage areas.
Coventry Council investigated the ball bearing incident after receiving a complaint
from the aggrieved customer, and environmental health manager Geoff Makin admitted he was
surprised by what they found.
He said:
"The machine that puts the hot toppings onto the McDonald’s ice-cream sundaes
had basically fallen to pieces so the staff were spooning them on manually.
"However, what they failed to realise was that bits of the machine had actually
fallen into the food, and when we investigated we found that as well as the 10mm diameter
ball bearing that had come to light, there was another one missing.
"It is not the first time the company has experienced this problem with the
machines, there have been four or five cases up and down the country and a similar problem
has previously occurred in Canley, Coventry.
"I am surprised that McDonald’s did not do more to prevent this from
happening. They circulated a memo which advised staff to look around in the sauce to see
if they could see any components missing if this happened, which seems ridiculous.
"They have now made sure that if this happens the staff do not use any of the
sauce at all, but it would have been useful if they had done that when they first knew of
the possible problem."
However, Makin does stress that people should not be scared to eat in the
company’s restaurants, as their general food safety record is good.
He said:
"In court they said that this sundae was one of over 20 million they had sold in
Britain alone, so while it is unfortunate, it is not as if it is happening all the time.
"Their record is very good and I think that is why the court chose to fine them
only £2,000 on this occasion."
