A university student says she was disgusted to find an unlisted ingredient in her McMuffin during a Saturday night Macca’s run.

The woman and her friend decided to partake in the rite of passage of many university students when they made a quick pit stop at the Braddon McDonald’s drive-thru in Canberra on Saturday night.

But after going their separate ways, one unsuspecting customer noticed “something was off” with her egg and cheese McMuffin.

“I took a bite and then I realised something wasn’t right,” she said.

View photos One bite into the egg and bacon McMuffin, the student realised something wasn’t quite right. Source: Supplied More

“I opened it up and found what looks like a piece of chewing gum. It was cooked into the burger, it was in the cheese.”

Speaking anonymously to Yahoo7 News, the customer said she felt “sick just thinking about it”.

“You trust these people to make your food,” she said.

“I was disgusted from a health standpoint, who knows where that has been and what it is carrying.”

View photos She said she felt sick when she discovered what she suspects is chewing gum. Source: Supplied More

The two customers said they returned to the store, where the manager offered them a refund and something else from the menu, an offer they promptly turned down.

“I’m never going back… if I hadn’t checked it, I would have eaten it,” she said, revealing that it was not the first time they had experienced problems with that store.

“How many other people has this happened to, not just at this McDonald’s but at others as well?”

The restaurant manager told Yahoo7 News the supervisor in charge that night suspected the item was blue tac but said he had no idea how it ended up in the student’s muffin.

View photos The manager of the Braddon McDonald’s said he has no idea how the item ended up being cooked into the student’s meal. Source: Google Maps More

“My manager took images of the muffin but then he threw it away,” he said.

“I checked with my kitchen straight away to see if there is some way it could’ve gone into the meal.

“I have reviewed the footage of that night… there is no possible way it could have fallen in.”

He said he was confident none of his staff had placed the item in the meal, adding that he had filed a foreign items form to McDonald’s head office, as well as offering his sincerest apologies to the customer.

The woman said she has reported the incident to ACT Public Health, who confirmed to her they are investigating.