Ice at KFC Martineau Place has high level of bacteria from faeces

A few months after battling a PR crisis when KFC was accused by a California diner of serving him fried rat instead of friend chicken, the fast food chain is in another public health headache. UK authorities initiated an investigation on a branch of KFC in Birmingham after a TV researcher was served ice with faecal bacteria on it.

BBC was making a report on food hygiene standards at some of the major food takeaway establishments and coffee shops in the country. Most of the samples had very low or harmless levels of bacteria, reports News.com.au.

However, the exception to that is the high levels of bacteria in the ice of KFC Martineau Place which the undercover BBC researcher, who was doing a report for “Rip Off Britain,” discovered. The BBC staff had the ice analysed at the Leeds Beckett University, and Dr Margarita Gomez Escalada, who studied the sample, confirmed there was high level of bacteria in the ice.

Escalada explains, “The presence of faecal coliform suggests that there’s faecal contamination either on the water that made the ice, or the ice itself, and so it increases the risk of getting sick from consuming this ice,” quotes BBC. She says it is difficult to say how the faecal bacteria got to the ice. She says it most likely was infected when someone with unclean hands touched the ice.

KFC, in a statement, says it is extremely disappointed with the results of the ice test and it has rolled out its own probe. The fast food giant says it takes food hygiene and safety extremely seriously and initiated an employee retraining programme on company standards for touch point cleaning and procedures.

The BBC researchers asked for a cup of tap water with ice from five dining establishments. These are Costa in Loughborough, the Chicken Cottage in Hampstead, Café Nero in Bath, the Wimpy in Basildon and the KC in Birmingham.