A story that is incredible, and that could have turned into a tragedy. A six year old girl was almost suffocated by a McDonald’s chicken nugget which contained a surgical mask anti-Covid.
The case of the chicken mask
The small one Maddie, this is the name of the little girl, was eating with her mother, Laura Arber, a McDonald’s sandwich at Aldershot, Hampshire, branch of the most famous fast food giant in the world. Mum said she literally had to put a finger in the girl’s mouth to remove the swallowed mask from her throat.
“Disgusting, I couldn’t understand what it was, but I looked at the nugget box and saw something blue stick out,” explained Mum. “It was a mask, it had been baked and it had become like chewing gum. If I hadn’t been there I don’t know what could have happened. “
The big fast food company immediately hastened to say that it is investigating what has happened, that food safety is of the “utmost importance” for the company and that it always ensures “rigorous standards to avoid any imperfections”. McDonald’s also initiated an investigation with the supplier and took steps to ensure that any product from this batch is removed from restaurants.
How McDonald’s has changed
It is not the first time that such things have happened in a McDonald’s restaurant. But it is also true that in the past 20 years the Mc’s policy has changed a lot.
While the various surveys conducted in the late 90s and early 2000s showed anything but genuine burgers, with flaws not negligible from the qualitative point of view – for example for the presence of starch, of meat other than beef or of low quality – both from the nutritional one, because of the poor protein balance and of too many calories, today things have changed.
It was 1990 when the American Heart Nutrition Association launched a violent press campaign against McDonald’s accusing it of being “the poison of North America”. After that, for example, the company decided to introduce vegetable oil in the frying of potato chips. Also famous is the photo of the sandwich kept for ten years, who has traveled around the world.
Security and the traceability system
Today, the company is in continuous expansion. Much of the meat we eat at McDonald’s in Italy comes from Italian farms, the control on hygiene and quality respects the highest standards. It guarantees the origin, history and quality of each single ingredient, which is why it requires all suppliers to have one traceability system through which each supply and production phase is fully documented.
For each batch of meat, for example, it is possible to trace exactly the origin, breeding and health checks of the livestock. The same happens for fruit and vegetables, for which it is possible to quickly trace the plot of land in which they were grown and the seeds and fertilizers used.
Among the initiatives that McDonald’s has developed throughout the supply chain and within restaurants to guarantee the quality and safety of products, there is the HACCP program (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point), which provides for risk analysis and control of critical points in the production chain, with daily verification of the entire supply chain, from receipt of goods to sale. The goal is to always have control of the entire production cycle, guaranteeing the customer a controlled product.
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