January 16, 2015
Plastic in nugget not from our facilities, Cargill says
Following an exhaustive investigation, Cargill has concluded that the blue, plastic foreign material recently reported in one McDonald's chicken nugget in Japan did not originate from Cargill's production facilities.
The Cargill investigation included physical analysis, chemical analysis, microscopic third-party lab analysis and a step-by-step search across the company's entire production facility.
"Additional data points revealed during the investigation such as: the length of the blue plastic film; lab analysis results lacking clear indications associated with heating; a review of the records of our Food Safety and Quality Assurance Programs suggest that this plastic film found in the nugget was not impacted as would be expected by our meat grinding and cooking processes. We are very confident that the plastic film in the nugget occurred outside of our production plant," stated Chuck Warta, president, Cargill Meats Thailand.
Warta continued, "We are always striving to reduce risks in our production processes. We are going to increase our investments in additional X-ray machines and additional resources at our visual inspection points at our Thailand facilities."