Lianna Hutchins, a Bournemouth resident, placed a £45 order for her family at Burger King in Castle Lane East. This sounds like a most usual everyday order, but it left Miss Hutchins “almost in tears” after one bite. She said that she has been a vegetarian all her life and has been vegan for the past three years but when she took a bite out of a nugget that she believed to be vegan – but was in fact chicken, she was left “almost in tears.”
“When I ate it and realized, it made me feel sick,” Hutchins said. “I was nearly in tears. I have health issues as well, so I don’t want to be putting meat in my body,” she added. “I noticed the smell and texture was definitely different to a vegan nugget,” she explained. “I chewed on the nugget and I thought to myself this doesn’t taste vegan. I couldn’t believe it; with Natasha’s Law you’d think everybody would be trained and be aware of food allergies.”
She then continued about contacting the restaurant, saying: “I contacted the restaurant and the manager was very dismissive. He put me on the phone with the man who packed my order. He told me to go to the head office.”
“We eventually got a refund on only the chicken nuggets, which was £5, but they didn’t refund the rest of the meal. I couldn’t eat the rest of the meal, I felt sick,” said Hutchins, according to the report.
The same thing had happened to her mum and dad back in the nineties, said Miss Hutchins, and they had received a lot of compensation for it. She then went on to say that the branch had not taken what had happened seriously while adding that her family meal, which saw relatives visiting her house, had been “ruined” as she had to take herself away and report it on the phone upstairs.
On the other side, a spokesperson for Burger King said that “Burger King UK acknowledges the customer’s concern and apologizes for the impact this has caused.” “After further investigation, we believe all the appropriate steps were taken, and there were no signs of cross-contamination,” the spokesperson added.
“We will be reaching out to the customer to provide assistance and will be working to ensure all necessary measures and staff training are reinforced,” the spokesperson finished.
