A takeaway has received a one-star hygiene rating as a council investigates claims it delivered food partially-eaten by another customer.

Bosses at Ramsgate Fried Chicken in Margate have been told "major improvement" is necessary in the management of food safety.

An officer from Thanet District Council visited the Ramsgate Road takeaway on Tuesday, May 5.

Days earlier, a customer claimed a delivery driver had retrieved a meal from one address, as it was the wrong order - and taken it to another.

Jess Oakley from Birchington said she ordered from the takeaway via Just Eat on the evening of Saturday, May 2.

When the meal had still not arrived 30 minutes after the expected delivery time, she called up and was told the driver had just left.

The food arrived about 15 minutes later and her partner started to tuck in.

But Ms Oakley says she soon realised the order was wrong and again phoned Ramsgate Fried Chicken.

“They told us to bag up what we hadn’t eaten to give to the right people," she said.

“So now we had eaten somebody else’s meal, handled their food, and given it back to the driver to get our own food.

“It’s bad enough that it happened, but with Covid-19 this is awful.”

Ms Oakley managed to get hold of the other customer, Rosie, who told her the driver had to go out again to a third address to get the correct food.

After the inspection three days later, the food safety officer rated the takeaway's food handling and the cleanliness of the facilities as very good.

But its management of food safety caused serious concern.

This category covers the checks in place to ensure food is safe to eat and "evidence that staff know about food safety". It also requires the inspector to have "confidence that standards will be maintained in future".

KentOnline asked to see the officer's full report. But a council spokesman said reports pertaining to ongoing investigations are not publicly available and would not be released under a Freedom of Information request.

When asked today about receiving the second-lowest hygiene rating, a member of staff at Ramsgate Fried Chicken said: "No comment."

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