There are many instances of non-food items being found in food, far more than the ones we have mentioned here, but did you know that there are dedicated task forces employed by restaurant chains to investigate claims?
When something unfortunate happens in the kitchen, restaurants don't want it to affect the customers' overall experience. If it does, they want to offer a settlement ASAP to show their good will and to keep the story out of the new, if at all possible. Usually employees can verify an incident, as can delivery records, etc. This option is often coupled with a non-disclosure agreement, which means that far fewer incidents make the papers than really happen.
Some of the stories make it into the papers regardless of what the restaurant tries to do and, not infrequently, they inspire copycats. The copycats attempt to plant things in their food and defraud the restaurants, so for every incident that is reported, the company's investigators are called in. Eyewitness testimony and scientific evidence can prove an incident to be fake, as it was in the case with the mouse "found" in soup at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. In these cases, no settlement is offered (though the offenders in this particular example bizarrely tried to get the restaurant to pay them to not admit they tried to defraud them) and the scammers end up serving time.
The incidents are unfortunate, but a finger in your food isn't a crime unless you planted it there. Otherwise, it's just bad PR.
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