Advertisement

Minnesota-based Cargill: Plastic found in Japanese McNuggets not our fault

After an "exhaustive investigation," Cargill said that a piece of plastic found in McNuggets in Japan didn't originate from its processing operation.

January 14, 2015 at 5:47PM
McDonald's Chicken McNuggets
No plastic in these McNuggets (Randy Salas/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

After an "exhaustive investigation," Cargill said Wednesday that a piece of plastic recently found in an order of McNuggets in northern Japan didn't originate from its Thailand chicken processing operation.
Both Cargill and McDonald's Japan apologized last week after a piece of blue plastic about 1 ½ inches long popped up in a customer's McNuggets in Misawa, Japan.
Wayzata-based Cargill is a big supplier to McDonald's worldwide, and the Golden Arches is a major customer for the Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant.
Cargill's investigation included "chemical analysis, microscopic third party-lab analysis and a step-by-step search across Cargill's entire production facility," the company said
"We are very confident that the plastic film in the nugget occurred outside of our production plant," Chuck Warta, president of Cargill Meats Thailand, said in a press statement.
McDonald's Japan, in a separate statement Wednesday, confirmed the results of Cargill's investigation. But the company said the possibility of the plastic entering the McNuggets during food preparation was low, and it was therefore unable to determine the object's origin, Reuters reported.
A second piece of plastic was found in McNuggets at a Tokyo McDonald's, Bloomberg News reported last week. Cargill couldn't investigate that reported incident because it could not obtain the plastic to analyze it, Cargill spokeswoman Lori Johnson told the Star Tribune.

Advertisement
about the writer

about the writer

Mike Hughlett

Reporter

Mike Hughlett covers energy and other topics for the Minnesota Star Tribune, where he has worked since 2010. Before that he was a reporter at newspapers in Chicago, St. Paul, New Orleans and Duluth.

See Moreicon

More from Minnesota Star Tribune

See More
In this photo taken Monday, March 6, 2017, in San Francisco, released confidential files by The University of California of a sexual misconduct case, like this one against UC Santa Cruz Latin Studies professor Hector Perla is shown. Perla was accused of raping a student during a wine-tasting outing in June 2015. Some of the files are so heavily redacted that on many pages no words are visible. Perla is one of 113 UC employees found to have violated the system's sexual misconduct policies in rece

We respect the desire of some tipsters to remain anonymous, and have put in place ways to contact reporters and editors to ensure the communication will be private and secure.

card image
Advertisement
Advertisement

To leave a comment, .

Advertisement