McDonald's Japan Finds Tooth and Plastic in Food, Apologizes And Promises To Be Better

McDonald’s is having some issues lately – and nobody is loving it. The company’s Japan division apologized Wednesday and promised better product safety management after customers found a tooth and plastic in their food. The apology came just a day after news reports that the chain’s Venezuela stores ran out of french fries.

In the past six months, the fear of food contamination has been inflamed at McDonald’s Japan, following a number of health hazards. In August, a tooth was found in a french fries pack and on a few occasions customers have found plastic in chicken nuggets and sundaes, including blue vinyl this past weekend and a piece of transparent vinyl on Thursday.

Thai suppliers of Cargill Inc. have been in charge of distributing McDonald's Japan’s chicken nuggets, and use colored packages to quickly identify pieces of plastic that should not be in the food, the Wall Street Journal article reported. When the customer this weekend found a 4-centimeter piece of vinyl, the Japanese chain of the “Supersize Me” company stopped selling chicken nuggets made from that day.

In July 2014 the company halted sales of some of its menu items, including chicken nuggets, in Hong Kong because of a “food safety scare” involving tainted meat. That prompted the chain to switch from the U.S.-owned Chinese company, Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd, they were importing from to Thai suppliers six months ago.

McDonald’s Japan is 49.9 percent owned by McDonald’s, but has been seeing the dizzying effects of its food safety issues. Notwithstanding attempts to rectify the matter, including hiring Chief Executive Sarah Casanova last year, the company is still looking at its sixth straight year of sales declines, according to Reuters.