We have just received an official statement from Mister Donut on the controversial video showing a rodent infestation in one of the food franchise’s outlets:
Starting January 1, 2016, all MRT kiosks, including Mister Donut shops, were not given access permits to operate by MRT3-DOTC. The aforesaid access permit has always been issued by MRT3-DOTC on a monthly basis and this action of not issuing the access permit for January 2016 was a sudden directive from MRT3-DOTC and that even shop personnel were not allowed to retrieve items and goods.
Leftover Mister Donut products, which are normally picked-up the following day, were not allowed to be retrieved by MRT3-DOTC. Thus, when the said video was taken, the subject shop had been closed for more than a month and a half already. At that point, the shop was still off-limits to its personnel, even for cleaning. The MRT3-DOTC security personnel refused access to stall tenants’ shop personnel.
After the video broke out, the Mister Donut franchisee requested permission from MRT3-DOTC security personnel to retrieve the leftover donuts and to clean the shop citing pest infiltration but his request was denied by the station supervisor of MRT3-DOTC. It was only after several appeals and explanation, that pest infiltration might affect the train passengers, permission was granted. However, the permission granted by the MRT3-DOTC security personnel was only for the retrieval of the left-over donuts and did not allow cleaning of the shop or removal of signage/logos.
We are told that to date, all shops in the MRT stations remain closed and the issue on the issuance of access permits is pending with MRT3-DOTC.
While Mister Donut holds its franchisees to the highest standards of quality, however, we were unable to require strict compliance because of the situation above-described. Undoubtedly, the video, made possible only by the peculiar circumstances, unjustly damages our brand.
We hope that the video can be viewed in this context.
Respectfully yours,
Mister Donut Philippines Management