KEY POINTS

  • A woman in the Philippines claimed a Jollibee restaurant in the city of Taguig served her a deep-fried towel instead of chicken
  • Jollibee temporarily closed the branch in question over alleged "deviations" in food preparation procedures
  • The branch's employees will be retrained following the incident

A woman in the Philippines has claimed that a fast food restaurant served her a deep-fried towel instead of the fried chicken that she ordered.

Facebook user Alique Perez said she made the discovery after her son complained about how difficult it was to bite and slice into the Jollibee fried chicken she had ordered for him late Tuesday. In her post on the social media platform, Perez said she opened the piece of "chicken" with her hands and allegedly found a deep-fried towel.

She described the experience as "disgusting and embarrassing," noting that the order had come from a Jollibee chain restaurant in the city of Taguig via a local food delivery service called Grab.

"This is really disturbing... How the hell do you get the towel in the batter and even fry it!?" Perez wrote in the post, which has been shared over 80,000 times.

A video Perez included in the post showed a blue cloth encrusted in batter.

“Worst experience ever,” she said as the camera zoomed in on the container with her order.

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Perez then expressed her concern over the implications of the fiasco. "The essence of the towel contaminated the oil and the batter from the supplier so how many (fried chickens) are affected? We won't know," she said.

Jollibee, in response to the allegations, said in a statement released Wednesday that it has conducted a "thorough investigation" into the complaint and decided to temporarily close the branch responsible for the incident.

According to the company, the Jollibee Bonifacio - Stop Over branch will be closed for three days starting Thursday after it was found that "deviations from Jollibee's standard food preparation procedures occurred on the part of certain personnel of the store."

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The fast-food giant said it will "thoroughly review" the store's compliance with procedures and retrain its team to ensure that no similar incidents happen in the future. Jollibee said it will also send out reminders to all its stores "to ensure the strict adherence to Jollibee's food preparation systems."

The company did not disclose whether or not any of its employees would be penalized over the incident.

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Representation. Perez worried about the implications of the incident, specifically if it meant that other pieces of chicken were also contaminated from being fried with the towel. Pixabay