'Dead mouse' found in microwaveable rice turns out to be mould: 'My wife is uncontrollably vomiting'

A man went viral after tweeting an image of what he thought was a mouse in a package of microwaveable rice from Lidl - but a supermarket investigation discovered it was mouse-shaped mould.

Richard Leech posted a photo of the cooked Golden Sun pilau rice on Twitter, where he wrote: “Hi Lidl I wonder if you could let me know how this mouse got into my packet of rice?”

According to Leech, the rice, which was cooked, left his house smelling of “cooked mouse” and had a terrible effect on his wife.

“My wife is uncontrollable (sic) vomiting,” he concluded his complaint.

The customer’s tweet was liked thousands of times - with many people finding humour in the incident. Many news outlets also reported on the apparent discovery.

However, Lidl says it investigated after being alerted to the find and found that it was actually mould.

Before Lidl's investigation, people on Twitter piled in with rodent-based puns and jokes.

“Poor Stuart Little. Pray for Stuart,” one person wrote in reference to the 1999 movie Stuart Little starring a mouse that's adopted by a human family.

Others chose to use the German discount supermarket’s name in their puns.

“At least it was only a Lidl mouse it could have been a big mouse,” another person joked.

The supermarket promised to investigate, asking Leech in a Twitter reply to send more details via private direct message.

Just a few hours later, a spokesperson for Lidl told The Independent that it was not a mouse.

"It is never our intention for a customer to be dissatisfied in any way, and 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."

The Independent has contacted Richard Leech for comment.