A Lidl customer said his wife was reduced to "uncontrollable vomiting" after they found what they thought was a dead mouse inside a packet of rice.
Richard Leech posted a picture of the contaminated rice on Twitter, when he spotted it after microwaving his Golden Sun pilau rice and pouring it out onto a plate.
He tweeted at Lidl to complain about the experience, saying: "I wonder if you could let me know how this mouse got into my packet of rice?
"Now my house stinks of cooked mouse and my wife is uncontrollable vomiting."
The post has been 'liked' and 're-tweeted' thousands of times, and inspired other Twitter users to respond with mouse memes and pictures of "Stuart Lidl".
But it later emerged the 'mouse' was in fact a clump of mould.
Lidl apologised and said incidents of mould were "very rare" but could occur as the result of an extremely small hole in the pack.
Some said it must have been Remy from the film Ratatouille, sadly caught doing what he loved.
Another tweeter asked: "Is it dead now? Or just in a korma?"
Lidl said in a statement: "We were extremely sorry to see that this particular product did not meet the high standards that both we and our customers expect.
"Following contact with the customer, the matter was immediately escalated to our quality assurance team who, through their initial investigation with the supplier, were able to identify the foreign substance as mould.
"Whilst very rare, this can occur as a result of an extremely small hole in the pack."
"We only ever work with reputable accredited suppliers who have extensive controls and procedures in place to verify the quality of products. We are, therefore, very disappointed that our expected high standards were not met on this occasion, and are in ongoing contact with the customer on the matter."
