Photos Of KFC Kitchen Covered In Rat Feces Leaked By Whistleblower

An ex-employee at a KFC outlet in St. Budeaux, Plymouth, England, leaked pictures of his former workplace kitchen, filled with rat droppings and filth.

The former senior staff member of the fast food restaurant, who wished to remain anonymous, shared the photos with Plymouth Live, which showed company-manufactured bags of flour and shelves covered in rodent feces, boxes of vegetable oil covered in white dust that looked like flour, and appliances and utensils untidily dumped one on top of the other.

"There's a pest problem going on that they can't sort out. Pest control have been in but the mice keep coming back,” the ex-worker told the publication. “One morning I opened up the restaurant at 6 a.m. [local time, 1 a.m. EDT] and I could see a mouse looking back at me through the window from inside. They are breaking procedure by opening when they know mice are around. Pest control is meant to be called in straight away and the restaurant shouldn't open again until it has been cleared.”

“[If] mice get into the flour [then] there is a high chance of contamination. I also saw them around the coffee machine and coffee cups which was worrying. From the outside it looks clean but when you go behind the surfaces it's a different matter. The standards of cleanliness are so poor," he added.

In February, the same restaurant faced complaints regarding cleanliness. An anonymous customer told Plymouth Live at the time that the fast food joint remained open for business despite having a “rodent infestation.”

"You can see the rat traps by the bins and shit in the toilets. My friend who works there told me about the traps by the bins and I have seen the droppings. A mouse literally ran across the floor in there not just a few days ago,” the customer said.

When the restaurant was asked about the dozen rat traps laid down around the site, it denied having a "wider issue" and claimed that the issue was limited to the outer area of the eatery. The last inspection by the Food Standards Agency of the joint was made in 2017, when it received the maximum score of five.

After receiving a number of complaints, a KFC spokesperson said the company had taken effective steps to address the matter: “We were surprised to hear about this, so have since been working with our pest control contractor to take extra measures to help deal with an issue in the local area. This included altering the landscaping around the restaurant and traps. We see these as precautionary measures and there’s no wider issue with the restaurant itself, which is why we’re open for business as usual.”

Meanwhile, several KFC outlets across Devon and Cornwall selected a number of residents via ballot to visit the company’s restaurants before opening time, in March, to get a behind-the-scenes look at the kitchens and how their favorite meals were made. The event was part of their KFC Open Kitchen initiative, which began in 2017.

“We’ve always been a brand and a company that prides itself on being as transparent as we can. I think people often have incorrect perceptions about KFC and they just fear the worst. We are literally inviting people into the kitchens to go ‘see it for yourself and actually have a go’,” the managing director of KFC U.K. and Ireland, Paula MacKenzie, said, Devon Live reported.

It was not clear whether the KFC restaurant in St. Budeaux participated in the event.