Mouldy pancakes flatten appetite

Wendy's customer Tracee Davis was shocked to find the pancakes she bought were mouldy. Photo / Richard Robinson

Fast-food chain Wendy's is considering taking pancakes off the menu after a woman received mouldy pancakes from a North Shore outlet.

Tracee Davis, 44, was alarmed to find signs of mould on all three of her pancakes on Saturday, after she took her son to Wendy's Old Fashioned Burgers on Constellation Drive on the North Shore for a treat.

"There were green spots, which were a little furry. I was devastated. It put me straight off. You won't see me eating there again, at least not for a very long time," she said.

After complaining to the restaurant's manager she received an offer of a new meal, which she declined. She accepted a full refund.

Ms Davis said the store's manager and a spokesman from Wendy's head office rang her three days later to apologise.

"Someone would've had to have seen the pancakes before they served them. They couldn't have missed the mould. They must've been sitting around for days," she said.

Wendy's marketing manager Fay Stretch said the company was mortified by the incident and was considering changing its supplier.

Stores were now throwing out pancakes a day earlier than the "best-before" date, although the pancakes Ms Davis bought had not expired, she said.

"We think that maybe somewhere in the supply chain they may have [been in] a humid environment."

Ms Stretch said Wendy's might remove pancakes from the breakfast menu altogether or replace them with another product. A decision should be made by next week.

Ms Stretch said that when the complaint reached the company's head office on Monday morning, all stores were told to throw away any unsold pancakes and to wait for new stock to arrive.

"We have also asked our staff to be more vigilant."

Goodman Fielder, which supplies the pancakes through its brand Quality Bakers, said in an email to Wendy's that any warm, moist conditions would promote mould growth and that it could happen at any point in the supply chain.

It tried to minimise the risk by reducing product shelf life during summer, directing consumers to keep bread in the fridge, fitting medical screens in bakeries to filter out mould spores and distributing through frozen and chilled chains, it said.

Van Dycks, which manufactured pancakes on behalf of Goodman Fielder, had received six mould complaints since November 2009, said the email.

Goodman Fielder has suggested providing the pancakes frozen to Wendy's.

Diagnostic Medlab head Arthur Morris said, for most people, eating the types of mould that can grow on food would be harmless - though the realisation you were eating mould could be enough to make you feel sick.