A Dunkin' Donuts employee in Mendon, Massachusetts has been caught on video dropping a tray of fresh doughnuts on the floor, picking them up, and selling them to customers, ABC News reports.
Liam Flaherty, a former employee at the Dunkin' Donuts location, uploaded a video of the incident to Facebook earlier this month, stating that the doughnut-dropping fiasco was brought to the attention of the store's manager and owner, "who dismissed it as no big deal."
In the video, the employee watches a tray of doughnuts tumble to the floor as it slips from her hand, looks around the room while running out the clock on the five-second rule, and then starts to load the pastries back on the tray.
While the floor of this suburban doughnut shop may be squeaky clean (OK, probably not), the video clip has customers' stomachs churning, causing Dunkin' Donuts fans around the country to wonder exactly how many times this has happened in the past.
Flaherty, a college student—and champion for food safety regulations, apparently—told ABC News that he quit his job at the Mendon Dunkin' Donuts after the franchise's management refused to take action.
“People ate those donuts that fell and touched the ground,” he said. “And she was just OK with that."
The video dates back to last November, but Flaherty, reportedly frustrated by the lack of action from his unsanitary employers, finally decided to release the footage to the public this month. The identity of the employee in the video has not been released, though a quick look at the clip confirms that the suspect is not Ariana Grande, who was caught on video licking other people's doughnuts at a bakery last year.
While the Mendon location has stayed quiet on the matter so far, Dunkin' Donuts' corporate office issued a statement on the controversy.
"At Dunkin' Donuts, food safety is a top priority and nothing is more important to us than the operation of clean and safe restaurants," the statement reads. "We have been informed that the Mendon Board of Health visited the Dunkin' Donuts restaurant today for an inspection and no violations were found."