A man from Baishan city, Northeast China's Jilin Province said he found what he suspected to be mouse droppings in a bag of Master Kong's instant noodles on Monday. The largest instant noodle brand in China responded on Wednesday that it cannot rule out the possibility that the object was only a crumb of batter from the frying process.

The man, surnamed Zhang, said that he was going to eat the crumbs and throw the noodles in the pot when he found a small black object stuck on it. "I hurried to look and it turned out to be a mouse dropping," Zhang said.

When Zhang discussed the matter with the manufacturer, they said that they could provide a compensation right away, but Zhang refused the offer.

"There are all kinds of other things in their factory's quality control and the mouse droppings that spread germs have a big sanitary concern." Zhang asked for the brand to give a reasonable explanation of the issue and make an apology.

A customer service representative from Master Kong responded to the controversy on Wednesday, saying that there cannot be mouse droppings in the product and it might have been a batter crumb made during the frying process of the noodles.

Master Kong controls 40 enterprises in Guangdong and Shandong provinces, and in Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities, as well as in other provincial-level regions. Among these companies, some have been punished for producing and distributing substandard food, data showed.

Only a month ago, during the annual "3.15 Gala" focusing on the protection of consumers' rights, one of Master Kong's most popular products, the "Laotan pickled cabbage instant noodle," was exposed for using pickled cabbage produced in poorly-sanitized pits instead of in special jars, or Laotan, as the product's name claimed.

After the incident, the once-favorite instant noodle has been left tidily on supermarket shelves. Master Kong then apologized for loopholes in its management and immediately suspended its cooperation with the pickle supplier.