Burger King sparked controversy with a controversial social media post on International Women’s Day.

The burger chain tweeted: “Women belong in the kitchen.”

In the following tweet, Burger King UK clarified what the tweet meant by highlighting a lack of female chefs in the industry.

Burger King UK tweeted: "If they want to, of course. Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career."

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, with the initial tweet going viral.

At the time of writing the initial tweet has over 30,000 retweets and quote tweets with nearly 50,000 likes.

In comparison, the follow-up tweet had just 3,000 retweets and 11,000 likes.

The approach has been branded “shameful” on social media.

One Twitter user wrote: “Shameful Burger King, absolutely bang out of order. On Women’s Day no less.”

Another wrote: “I won’t be eating at your store again thanks.”

A third user said: "We know you’re doing this for controversy. Expected better from a large company than to use toxic marketing..."

And a fourth added: "Spot on, ‘rEaD tHe rEpLy’ totally misses the point. Imagine tweeting something racist and then saying ‘only joking’"

Burger King moved to defend the tweet in response to one user posting a meme that said: “The best time to delete this post was immediately after posting it. The second best time is now.”

To which Burger King replied: “Why would we delete a tweet that’s drawing attention to a huge lack of female representation in our industry, we thought you’d be on board with this as well?

“We've launched a scholarship to help give more of our female employees the chance to pursue a culinary career.”