Food

There's 'Little to No Chance' Dairy Queen Is Serving Human Meat, Coroner Says

A recent federal raid and a complaint about "human meat being inside a burger" has cast suspicion on a South Carolina Dairy Queen.
Bettina Makalintal
Brooklyn, US
dairy-queen-employee-assembling-burger
Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Most fast food brands have spent the past two weeks online firing off tweets about fried chicken sandwiches, manufacturing marketing drama over who has the best one, and otherwise frantically inserting themselves, no matter how sadly, into the sandwich discourse.

Dairy Queen, meanwhile, has had to take to social media to remind the world that, no, they do not use human meat in their burgers—just "100% beef" with "no additives or fillers."

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Federal agents raided the Greenwood, South Carolina Dairy Queen on Wednesday, fanning the flames of rumors that the location used more than beef for its hamburger meat, the Index-Journal has reported. According to manager Saif Momin, a corporate inspector informed him that a complaint filed against the location had alleged "human meat being inside a burger." As Momin told the Index-Journal, "If that was the case, they already would have shut me down."

Alas, as a result of that raid, Greenwood County Coroner Sonny Cox has had to make a declaration he might never have expected: When it comes to ground-up human flesh in the burgers at the South Carolina Dairy Queen, Cox told the Index-Journal, "There's little to no chance of anything like that ever being able to happen." The location, the newspaper pointed out, has done well in recent health inspections, holding an "A" grade from four inspections in 2018.

While none of the store's 18 employees were charged with crimes resulting from the raid, the Washington Post reports that two local men are now facing charges for allegedly running an unlicensed money transfer business, which allegedly used the Dairy Queen as an exchange site. Momin was named in the probable-cause affidavit filed in South Carolina's federal court, though he has not been charged with any crimes.

Calling the allegations "troubling," a spokeswoman for Dairy Queen International told the Index-Journal that the company will be "looking into this matter and will be following the ongoing investigation closely as more information becomes available," while deferring to the authorities.

Sounds like there might be some beef at Dairy Queen, in more ways than one, but that sure as hell beats the alternative.