A man has spoken of his horror after nearly choking on his Domino’s Pizza – having bitten in to what appears to be an inch long chicken claw.
Andy Eckersall, 35, from Stockport in Greater Manchester, was tucking into a large Tandoori Hot pizza when he felt something hard dig into his gum.
To his disgust he pulled out an inch-long grisly black claw from his mouth.
Bosses at the popular pizza takeaway franchise have insisted that they are investigating the incident.
The IT director said: “I initially thought it was a burnt piece. It stuck into my gum. When I pulled it out I saw it and it was this claw with gristle around the knuckle. I initially wanted to throw up. My wife was horrified. It was the last piece of that half of the pizza.
“It was not really solid because it had been baked. It could have hooked into someone’s throat. It could quite easily have been swallowed and got jammed.”
He said that he and his wife ordered two large pizzas, garlic bread, potato wedges and a bottle of Coca-Cola from their local Domino’s branch in Heaton Chapel all coming to GBP22.99.
After initially receiving no response to his complaint from the pizza company he resorted to posting a rant on the Domino’s Pizza UK Facebook page, which read: “The pizza arrived promptly, but whilst eating I experienced a sharp pain and found myself half choking whilst chewing a mouthful of pizza that had chicken tikka on it. I continued to pull a solid chunk out of my mouth and to my horror found I’d been chewing on a chicken claw!?!?”
After finding the claw Andy said he immediately rang the local branch, who he has ordered from many times the past, to complain.
He said: “I got straight on the phone to the Heaton Chapel Branch. Their immediate response was to say they were sorry and that they would send another pizza. I said ‘no I do not want another pizza.’ At that point I was still in shock.”
The branch told Andy they would send a driver over to collect the offending claw and the remaining uneaten whole pizza.
After being ignored for an hour and a half, Andy said he called the branch back at 9pm to find out what was happening.
Andy said: “An hour and a half later there was still no driver. I phoned back to ask what was going on and said I want a refund. I got on the phone with a girl called Sonya and I was chatting to her and she said they would give us a refund and that they would send out the van.”
Andy posted on the Facebook page: “With something as serious as this I was amazed that it wasn’t dealt with as a priority, it appears that your company prefers to continue sending out drivers for more profit than worrying about sharp objects being put in your pizzas!
His Facebook post to the company read: “I was promised there would be a driver sent out immediately and would be with us within 10 minutes. At least this time a driver was sent out to collect the uneaten pizza and claw, he still arrived 20 minutes later (the branch is literally less than a 5 minute drive away).”
Andy added: “When the driver turned up he said ‘that’s not nice’. I said ‘I was chewing on that mate.’ It wasn’t his fault though. He took it away and that was the end of it. I was happy to just get my money back and try and forget the whole thing.”
As the couple had paid for their Domino’s takeout meal on January 16 through PayPal the branch said they would receive a refund in the next 3-5 working days.
However the following Thursday they had still received no refund and the manager of the Heaton Chapel Domino’s called Andy up to tell him they could not give him the refund and he would have to email the head office.
Having not received any email back from Domino’s head office, Andy took matters into his own hands and took to Facebook to share his nightmare takeout.
Since posting the rant on Domino’s UK Facebook page the disturbing picture of the claw has been shared nearly 400 times.
It read: “Why couldn’t your own staff contact you themselves and get this sorted!? And even worse, having emailed that address with my complaint on Thursday, it is now the following Monday and still nobody has got back to me?!?!!”
He said: “I stuck it on Facebook to see if I got any response. I got one response from them asking if I had a reference number.” I replied that I had been fobbed off by the branch to email them. Someone must know about it but I haven’t heard anything back since.”
Andy said he has contacted Environmental Health to see what they could do to help.
He said: “The girl I spoke to was horrified herself. She did say it was hard to tell from pictures what it is. She said it is hard to tell if it is a chicken claw although a couple of people on facebook were saying it could be a dog claw. It is very difficult for them to do anything without the claw itself to analyse. She is going to try to get hold of the area manager to see if there has been any investigation or record into it.”
He added: “God knows how it got in there. Possible someone was just trying to pump the pizzas out without looking. But how it got in the pizza I don’t know. The Environmental Health lady said it could be from the supplier but how did the claw get there is beyond me. The whole thing is ridiculous. I will never eat there again, that’s for sure.”
In a statement a spokesperson for Domino’s Pizza Group PLC said: “The safety of our food is of upmost priority for Domino’s and we have strict processes and procedures in place for handling all ingredients and pizzas.
“We are currently working with the store to conduct a full and thorough investigation into this issue and ensure this is resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.”
