KFC customer bit into chicken, ended up with mouthful of maggots

Images show what appears to be chicken covered in maggots. Photo / Martyn Bates

A builder said he was disgusted after he bit into a piece of KFC chicken and found live maggots crawling around inside.

Martyn Bates said he bought three pieces of chicken from a branch in northern New South Wales at 3pm one day earlier in March, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

Bates said he ate one piece immediately but kept the remaining two in their packaging in his flexible cooler then in his fridge.

When he sat down to eat the two pieces for dinner at 9pm that evening, he said he ended up with a mouthful of maggots, the Daily Mail reported.

"I was so disgusted, I ended up gargling half a bottle of Listerine," he told the Bulletin.

Images show what appears to be chicken covered in maggots. Photo / Martyn Bates

Bates said the experience has put him off ever eating at that branch.

A KFC spokesman said studies show flies only deposit eggs in food at temperatures between 10 and 40C.

"We hold out raw chicken below these temperatures and our cooked chicken well above so again, it's unlikely this situation happened pre-purchase," they added.

Bates insists he didn't keep the chicken exposed long enough for flies to lay eggs.

"What would have happened if I'd just ended up in hospital with salmonella?" he asked.

Bates also said he was unhappy with the $20 voucher he said the restaurant offered him.