McDonalds Happy Meal: Mum in Cumbria ‘disgusted’ after finding smoked cigarette in kid’s food box

A mum was left ‘disgusted’ after buying her toddler a McDonald’s Happy Meal only to find a cigarette butt and ash in the box. Gemma Kirk-Bonner, 35, said she was ‘fuming’ when she made the grim discovery and that she was still waiting for an apology from the fast food giant.

The teaching assistant said the incident occurred last Wednesday (October 18), when she went to a McDonald’s outlet, in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. She bought two fish finger Happy Meals, costing £3.59 each, for her kids, Caleb, one, and Jackson, three, and then took them home for the pair to eat.

But Gemma said as she was feeding her little baby, she shockingly noticed a smoked cigarette and ash nestled among dozens of fries. Gemma said: “I gave my three-year-old his without looking.

“Then I put my one-year-old in his high chair, and I was feeding him by hand. That’s when I noticed the ash and the cigarette in the box. It was disgusting. I was absolutely fuming.”

Gemma believes her three-year-old would have tried to eat the cigarette butt if she had given him the box. “He wouldn’t have known it was different,” she said. “I put on Facebook, ‘Forget the toy - now comes with cigarette end [and] ash for extra taste’ because I was fuming.”

Gemma said she later complained to the branch of McDonald’s, on Dalton Road, but said the manager had ‘rudely’ put the phone down on her. She now plans to boycott her usual Friday evening trips to the restaurant until the matter is properly addressed.

She added: “It has put me off. It’s made me think twice about going to McDonald’s. I normally take my sons on the Friday, but I won’t be doing it this time, that’s for sure. I’m in the process of complaining to McDonald’s head office.”

McDonald’s has been approached for comment.