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Sales drop at Wendy's after finger found
yahoo.com ^ | March 25, 2005 | ANDY RESNIK

Posted on 03/25/2005 7:19:58 PM PST by crushelits

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sales have dropped sharply at Wendy's fast food restaurants in the area of northern California where  a woman claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili, but analysts say the company's long-term prognosis should not be affected.

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."



TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: after; drop; finger; fingerfood; found; sales; soylentgreen; wendys; youdontsay
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To: Thinkin' Gal

Was it fresh?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1370756/posts?page=27#27


81 posted on 03/26/2005 5:05:50 AM PST by aculeus (Ceci n'est pas une tag line.)
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To: crushelits

Wait just a minute!!!!! If "restaurant employees" are not to blame and "company suppliers" are not to blame, Who the hell cooked this stuff and WHERE did it come from??????


82 posted on 03/26/2005 5:06:21 AM PST by Ditter
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To: Savage Beast
Well duh! If we knew who was going to go missing we could just follow them around and see where they went.

Then they'd never go missing in the first place, and we wouldn't need their DNA!

83 posted on 03/26/2005 7:21:00 AM PST by null and void (innocent, incapacitated, inconvenient, and insured - a lethal combination for Terri...)
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To: crushelits
Sales Drop After Wendy's gives Customer the Finger.








gitmo
84 posted on 03/26/2005 7:27:12 AM PST by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: null and void

Duh! Some people bank DNA samples from their children. Uh...I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes children wind up missing even when they're closely watched. Uh...it makes sense to some people, not to all.


85 posted on 03/26/2005 9:15:43 AM PST by Savage Beast (There is nothing liberal about the Left!)
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To: Savage Beast
[I have DNA samples from my kids archived]

Well DUH! Maybe we should lock up our kids so the predators can roam free.

Oh wait! Uhhh, *nevermind*

86 posted on 03/26/2005 9:26:17 AM PST by null and void (innocent, incapacitated, inconvenient, and insured - a lethal combination for Terri...)
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To: Loyal Buckeye

Thank goodness there was no booger on it. That would have been really gross.


87 posted on 03/26/2005 9:28:34 AM PST by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
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To: kylaka

When I was a kid I used to work at Wendy's. When I had burgers that were sitting on the grill too long and starting to dry out, we'd put them into a big container to be later dumped into the chili.

We called it "chili'd out."


88 posted on 03/26/2005 9:31:48 AM PST by imfleck
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To: crushelits

You don't know where that finger's been.


89 posted on 03/26/2005 9:42:14 AM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth...)
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To: Graybeard58

My favorite Wendy's moment...

In a Wendy's just outside Little Rock, AR on the way to Dallas. The guy making my buddy's chicken sandwich looks for a knife for the mayo. He looks around for a moment, shrugs, then sticks his thumb in the mayo and spreads it on the sandwich. Then he sticks his thumb in his mouth and licks off the remaining mayo.

Once the sandwich has been eaten and we are back on the road, I mention the incident to my friend.


90 posted on 03/26/2005 9:47:28 AM PST by MediaMole
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To: rdl6989

Good one! LOL. But remember, this was just an "isolated instance". :)


91 posted on 03/26/2005 9:51:12 AM PST by Starboard
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To: null and void
Do you really? I haven't done that, bu it seems like a very good idea.

I'm sorry I was so crabby. I just feel like being crabby today. I don't know why. Sometimes you just feel like a crab.

92 posted on 03/26/2005 12:09:02 PM PST by Savage Beast (There is nothing liberal about the Left!)
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To: Savage Beast

No problem. (Since you're crabby today, would you mind staying clear of my fingers? I don't want to be the guest of honor on the next thread)...


93 posted on 03/26/2005 12:13:38 PM PST by null and void (innocent, incapacitated, inconvenient, and insured - a lethal combination for Terri...)
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To: imfleck
Dave mentioned the "chili burgers" because he gave a talk to some Harvard or Stanford business majors, who basically told him that it was a consumer ripoff and ethically wrong to take burgers and make chili out of it. No matter how he explained it (he owned the meat, and until he sold it he could with it as he pleased, so long as the customer was pleased with the final product)... no matter how he explained it, they just didn't get it. You could tell he was dismayed and frustrated by the exchange with the students and finally just joked that a Harvard education just ain't what it used to be.

To anyone in business with an ounce of common sense it is just bad business not to do everthing possible to cut waste in order to provide the highest quality products at the lowest possible cost.

94 posted on 03/26/2005 3:29:49 PM PST by kylaka
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To: null and void

...one of the advantages of online friendships.


95 posted on 03/26/2005 3:44:11 PM PST by Savage Beast (There is nothing liberal about the Left!)
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To: Tall_Texan
You mean those weren't chicken nuggets I had for lunch there???

No, they were . . . . .


96 posted on 03/26/2005 3:48:26 PM PST by Larry Lucido (We miss ya, Indie! Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - http://www.leap.cc)
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To: crushelits

97 posted on 03/26/2005 3:53:11 PM PST by Larry Lucido (We miss ya, Indie! Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - http://www.leap.cc)
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To: crushelits

What about sales of Eskimo Pies? ;)


98 posted on 03/26/2005 3:55:40 PM PST by Uncle Vlad
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