Beijing (CNS) -- The U.S. fast-food chain McDonald's released an apology to consumers via its official micro blog, one and a half hours after CCTV exposed their staff's inappropriate practices on World Consumer Rights Day late last night.
The state-owned TV station broadcast clips of a kitchen in a McDonald's restaurant in Beijing, where the staff were preparing date-expired chicken fillets, burger patties and pies. It also contended that staff members were directed to put beef patties that had dropped on the floor back into the buns.
McDonald's China declared it attaches great importance to the situation covered by CCTV, and will start an immediate investigation of what it refers to as a single case, promising to make sure the consequences are severe. "That is our apology to consumers," it said in a published post at 9:50 pm yesterday.
Consumers are not "lovin' it." By press time, the post had been forwarded 16,300 times, attracting 9,511 comments from web users.
"It is too early to conclude this is an individual case," one web user retorted, adding "We'll see after the investigation." This sentiment represented the mainstream of opinion feedback.
"No discipline in daily work, and now you are trying to save your image by crisis management," another web user commented in an angry tone. Many micro bloggers said they had witnessed similar violations in other Chinese branches of McDonald's.
