Sales Drop at Wendy's After Finger Found

Peter Oakes, a restaurant analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York, said he doesn't expect Wendy's business to suffer long term from the discovery Tuesday night of a partial finger.


The hamburger chain serves about 6 million meals a day across the country and has a "national reputation for both quality and cleanliness," he said.


"To me the yard stick here is whether the single incident prompts the consumer to lose confidence in the brand. It's understandable to see some kind of knee-jerk reaction," Oakes said.


Franchise owners have informed the company's corporate headquarters in the Columbus suburb of Dublin that business is down, said Denny Lynch, spokesman for Wendy's International Inc. He said he could not release specific sales figures because Wendy's does not own those restaurants.


"It is an isolated incident. However, it is dramatically affecting sales in that market," Lynch said.


Authorities in San Jose, Calif., planned to search a fingerprint database on Friday to try to identify the finger's owner.


Capt. Bob Dixon of the Santa Clara County coroner's office said he did not know when their fingerprint expert might have a match. "Nobody's claimed it yet," he said.


U.S. financial markets were closed Friday for the holiday weekend. The day before, on Thursday, Wendy's shares rose 43 cents, or 1.1 percent, to close at $39.43 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) — near the high end of their 52-week trading range of $31.74 to $42.12.


Wendy's said the finger did not come from the restaurant's employees. It is also confident company suppliers are not to blame because of product coding that allows the company to trace where a product comes from, the day it was produced, when it was shipped and when it arrived at the restaurant, Lynch said.


However, he acknowledged the process was "not absolutely 100 percent perfect."


Matt Baun, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites)'s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said it was doubtful a person working at a federal beef producer would have lost the finger in an accident.


"The production line would have stopped, there would have been immediate need for medical attention and the meat products would be destroyed and not used for food," he said.


A Louisville, Ky., lawyer who has handled similar cases said he doesn't expect Wendy's image to take much of a hit.


Bo Bolus, who has represented plaintiffs over foreign objects found in McDonald's food and defended insurance companies against those claims, said consumers tend to realize that incidents like the one at Wendy's are accidents.


"I haven't found any big institutional problems in the fast-food chains," Bolus said. "I still go to McDonald's with my four boys."

could it be a plot?

whats the initial story?

Imagine if it was a di*k that was found! You eat an hamburger you feel something "unusual" in your mouth ( well I speak for me ) and it's a

eww. I'm not really crazy about Wendy's anyway. Their fries and frosties are the only things I get from them.

Oh my god, I researched the story even further to find out that a women actually found the damn finger in her bowl of chilli . And to think, I used to like to eat thier chilli. Lawd have mercy, . I don' think I will be eating Wendy's anytime soon.
[Edited 3/25/05 23:16pm]

Check the yahoo story for grody pictures

http://story.news.yahoo.c...inger_food

RipHer2Shreds said:

Did she bite it. I wonder if the finger was salty?

lilgish said:

According to the Yahoo article that Rip provided, the lady did bite into the digit . However, the health officials say the lady didn't have any health risk since the hand was cooked along w/the chilli ingredients .

Is this what happened to Wendy?



(Dude, those chicken strips are good...)

Hotlegs said:

That's too nasty.

i wonder which 16 year old employee is gonna fry for this...

Hey! This is a topic I would post!

I never want to eat fast food again.....
i never ate it that often anyways, but now never again.
I don't want no fuckin finger in my chilli, or a breaded chicken head in my chicken nuggets

Search Continues in Wendy's Finger Case

Fri Mar 25, 8:22 AM ET

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

A woman said she bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit.

The incident Tuesday night at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's restaurant left the unidentified customer ill and distraught, said Joy Alexiou, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County Health Department.

Employees at the Wendy's were checked and the fingertip didn't come from any of them, officials said, adding that the well-cooked finger may have come from a food processing plant that supplies the company.

Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy's International Inc., based in Dublin, Ohio, said there have been no reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (news - web sites) of injuries at any supplier of chili ingredients to Wendy's.

"All of our chili suppliers report no accidents," he said.

Health officials said the fingertip was approximately 1 1/2 inches long. They believe it belongs to a woman because of the long, manicured nail.

Investigators seized the remaining chili and closed the restaurant for a few hours.

Alexiou said the woman, who asked officials not to identify her, is at minimal risk of contracting illnesses from the finger because the chili was cooked.








That's disgusting!
[Edited 3/26/05 10:52am]

psychodelicide said:

Yeah, see I only posted the link to that story so people could choose whether or not to look at those pictures. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

holy cow..i didnt know this took place in san jose...


davideye did it!!!

i wonder whose finger it is

heybaby said:

is it the middle one?

sosgemini said:

I bet he did, he's that type of person to pull off such a shameful stunt

Seriously though - who orders chili @ Wendys? I mean really

This is beyond gross. The woman who ate it is probably haunted during every meal now

CalhounSq said:

You'd be suprised.
The nurse i used to work with along with the receptionist at the clinic ALWAYS ordered that nasty assed chilli from Wendy's.

I would never buy that shit, but they ate it every week.

I refuse to buy soup or any other liquid drinks and dishes from fast food outlets just from what i hear.

I watched a television show about people tampering with food behind the counter.
They found that one guy stired some woman's drink with his dick. And some teenager spat in a police officer's sandwich.
What a world

jayaredee said:

OY! Fast food is dangerous enough w/o ordering something so... unidentifiable I mean ANYTHING can fall in there - chili in general is just not cool!

...good gawd!

Moonwalkbjrain said:

U like it.
We know U do.

CalhounSq said:

I don't get fast food chili either. My mom seems to like it though My brother used to work at Wendy's and he told me that the meat in the chili was just old cooked hamburger patties that didn't get used for the burgers. He couldn't eat at Wendy's for years after working there, cuz he said some of the workers would drop patties or chicken breast on the floor and still use it. But that can happen at any restaurant. As long as their food is good and I don't actually know what's really goin' on or see it, then I don't really care.

You know Wendy's really suprised me with their fruit bowls. They're actually good and fresh.

AnckSuNamun said:

OMFG!!!! Ewwwww!!!!