Lucia Richardson said she was glad it was her and not her 22-month-old niece who bit into the burger.

The 29-year-old from Wickham Market, purchased food from the restaurant’s drive-thru along with her brother, 27, who also purchased a meal for his 22-month-old daughter on Saturday afternoon, when the shock discovery was made.

She said: “I was probably about five bites into the burger when I suddenly bit into something hard.

“Thinking it was a bone, I pulled it from my mouth. When it had finally come out and I looked at it, I was nearly sick. It was a piece of metal.

“They were very good and took my name so they could file a report of the incident, and they provided me with a new Zinger Burger.

“I just can’t believe this multi-million pound company can let things like this happen. It’s a good job I didn’t swallow this piece of metal, because I don’t want to think what would have happened to me, or anyone for that matter.

“I just couldn’t believe it. It could have been my niece eating that. There were a lot of children outside, it could have been one of them.”

Miss Richardson has since been contacted by KFC and a meeting has been arranged at the restaurant with the manager for the Martlesham area on Wednesday. They have also offered compensation in the form of KFC restaurant vouchers.

Speaking yesterday, Miss Richardson said: “I’m happy they’ve acknowledged it and dealt with it efficiently, but I rarely eat KFC, so vouchers really aren’t going to benefit me greatly.”

A KFC spokesman said: “We are very sorry for Lucia’s experience and launched an immediate investigation, which has found the item is likely to be from a plastic brush used in hand-breading the chicken.

“We have robust procedures and checks in place to prevent this from happening.

“The restaurant achieved the best possible Food Hygiene Rating of five stars out of five on its most recent Environmental Health inspection, so we’re very sorry that on this rare occasion we failed to meet our usual high standards.

“We would like to reassure Lucia and our customers that this was a one-off incident, and we have reminded staff to be extra vigilant to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”