An Auckland father says he received a rude shock in his KFC takeaway - but the fast food giant has denied they are responsible for crude drawings of male genitalia scrawled on a paper bag.
David Carpenter told the Herald he visited the Pakuranga branch on Saturday afternoon with his partner and two children, opting for drive-thru. He says there was nothing unusual about the order and no confrontation with staff before he was asked to park in front of the store while his order was completed.
After a brief wait, a male staff member appeared and handed him the bag - which he then passed to his eight and ten-year-old children.
“That’s when they said to me ‘Dad, what’s this on the bag?’”
It was penises. There were penises on the bag.
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Carpenter said that the contents of the order were written on the bag but there were also cartoon images of male genitals included.
”I looked at the bag and thought what in the actual f and I showed it to my partner and said ‘look at this’”
Photos supplied to the Herald show both the order and the obscene illustrations written in the same colour ink.
Carpenter went straight back into the store to seek an explanation.
He said the staff member he spoke to was “kerfuffled” when he pressed her on the issue.
“She really didn’t know what to say and she started kind of asking me questions like how did that get on the bag. I said, ‘listen, I’ve just literally come out of my car because you’ve just handed me this food and this is what’s on the bag’.”
He said he remained calm while asking staff for answers and, while one staff member admitted she had written the order, she “completely denied” drawing the penises on the bag.
”There’s no way that I could’ve put that on the bag,” Carpenter said.
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He was offered a refund, which he accepted, and left the bag behind with staff who asked to keep it for their own investigation.
A KFC spokesperson told the Herald they had completed a probe and found “no evidence to suggest any members of staff were involved”.
Carpenter challenged KFC to release CCTV footage of the incident, claiming that only approximately 20 seconds passed between him being handed the bag and then marching back into the restaurant.
He added he had previously trusted the fast food giant and was “absolutely horrified” that his children had been confronted with the images, saying one of his children struggled with dietary requirements that made dining out difficult and the incident had narrowed the family’s options even further.
“They won’t eat at KFC again,” he said.
“We can’t. Now she’s got a mechanism in her mind that something’s wrong with it, and that’s the problem.”