McDonald’s has apologised after customers across the UK reported finding chicken nuggets in vegetarian meals.

The fast-food chain apologised and acknowledged that it was unacceptable to serve meat to those who had ordered a vegetarian product.

McDonald’s launched its spicy veggie wrap at the beginning of the year, but some customers reported finding chicken nuggets in meals that were meant to be meat-free.

The ingredients of the tortilla-based wrap are red pesto, vegetarian goujon, relish, tomato, lettuce and red onion. However, customers who bought the meal said they found chicken nuggets in their wrap instead.

The wrap was launched in January along with McDonald’s new vegetarian Happy Meal.

People from across the country expressed their unhappiness on Twitter.

Seb from Lincoln said: “Not going to lie but finding chicken in my veggie wrap was quite surprising … But definitely not loving it.”

Sharing photos of the wrap filled with chicken, Emma Longley from Yorkshire tweeted: “I just ordered the veggie wrap from your store in Byker, turns out you gave me chicken … This is disgraceful I’m fuming was so looking forward to this … I’m a strict vegetarian and just took a mouthful of chicken, thanks a lot.”

Another woman, from Glasgow in Scotland, said: “Been vegan for over two years and treated myself to a veggie wrap from McDonalds for lunch. Bit into it and it’s chicken … Inside a veggie packaging … I seriously hope you do something about this, I am extremely upset.”

A spokesperson for McDonalds said: “We absolutely recognise that it is not acceptable to serve meat when our vegetarian product has been ordered, and we would like to apologise to any customer who has experienced this.

“We would also like to reassure that we have a number of procedures in place to avoid inaccurate orders, and that, after we saw that mistakes were being made, we introduced a number of additional measures in our kitchens and communicated with all stores to reduce inaccuracies quickly and effectively. This action has led to an increase in order accuracy and a reduction in contact from our customers, however we are disappointed that mistakes are still being made.

“We never want to disappoint customers, and any inaccuracy is not good enough. We would encourage anyone with any concerns to contact our customer services team.”