Finger-lickin’ chicken cleaning wrangle not yet over for KFC

KENTUCKY Fried Chicken in Braamfontein is not yet off the hook.

The City of Johannesburg said yesterday the franchise would be the subject of an environmental health investigation.

KFC, meanwhile, gave its own explanation of an incident in which staff were caught on camera washing meat on the floor with a hosepipe. The pictures went viral on social media. KFC managing director Doug Smart said staff at the KFC outlet had tried to hide a mistake they had made – but that should not be something they got into trouble for.

Smart said the chicken on the floor was going to be disposed of and was not being cleaned to be fried.

The franchise owner, Simon Malebane, had introduced strict controls, forcing his staff to thoroughly clean the chicken before it was breaded with flour. Defects like feathers or broken bones on it meant the chicken had to be discarded.

Cleaning it before it was breaded, and picking up the defects early, prevented losses.

Smart said in this case, the staff had not inspected the chicken properly before it was breaded and, when they realised it had defects, decided to clean the chicken to hide the fact that they had breaded it without checking it properly first.

“We are 100% certain that this chicken was discard chicken,” he said. “What we could not understand is why they were washing it. It made no sense. They could have washed it on the sink. “We do not know why they chose to wash it on the floor.

“This is a very unusual case. We have never before seen something like this.

“What we have done with Simon is to ask him to adjust his policy.”

The outlet had to be temporarily closed after the images went viral on Thursday. It has since reopened.

Peter Manganyi, director of environmental health in the City of Johannesburg, said yesterday his office had already been alerted to the incident.

“I know that the relevant people in the region have actioned something, but we have to still get a report from them,” he said.

The report should also indicate when the outlet was last inspected, he said.