Jollibee, a fried chicken fast-food chain in the Philippines, closed one of its shops for three days after a customer complained that she received a deep-fried towel instead of the poultry she requested.
In a Facebook post, which has swept across the internet, Alique Perez shared visuals of the mishap.
At 18:50 CAT on 1 June, a frustrated Perez took to social media to share her bizarre experience. The mother said she ordered chicken from Jollibee via Grab – a leading Southeast Asian delivery app – for her son.
“…while I was trying to get him a bite, I found it super hard to even slice. Tried opening up with my hands and to my surprise a deep-fried towel,” said Perez.
“This is really disturbing… How do you get the towel in the batter and even fry it,” questioned Perez.
At the time of writing, the Facebook post had more than 105 000 reactions and 87 000 shares.
As you’d expect, the internet had a field day with many netizens seeing the humour in the situation, others were less impressed.
In the videos Perez shared it is easy to see why she did not realise the deep-fried towel was not chicken. Until the blue fabric is revealed its resemblance to a battered meal is uncanny.
“I really thought that posts complaining about weird stuff in their orders were just all made up, now I know that it really happens,” said Perez. “So disgusting and embarrassing to think that you’re even branched in BCG [Bonifacio Global City]. There’s a first for everything and this has been the worst first!”
On 2 June, Jollibee Foods Corporation issued a statement in response to Perez’s complaint about the deep-fried towel. The restaurant chain, which is a global franchise with 1200 branches across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America, said it was “unfortunate” that certain staff deviated from its standard food preparation procedures.
“As a result of this incident, we have directed the Jollibee Bonifacio – Stop Over branch to close for three days starting tomorrow, 3 June, to thoroughly review its compliance with procedures and retrain its store team to ensure that this will not happen again,” said the restaurant group.
