A mouse head was found, for the second time this month, in a lunch box at a cafeteria in China, the country’s state media reported yesterday, sparking jokes online and a wider debate about food safety in the country.

The rodent’s head was found inside a lunch box in the cafeteria of the Xushan County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, according to state media, citing a statement from the county’s market regulation agency.

A video posted online shows the mouse’s head inside a dish of moyuya (duck with brandy), a local delicacy, according to the China Daily newspaper.

The hospital announced that the catering sector of its cafeteria has been outsourced to an external partner through a government tender and that it has not encountered such an issue in the past, according to the report citing local media.

Asked by Reuters, a hospital official who asked not to be named told the news agency to refer to “official reports” without elaborating.

This was the second time this month that a mouse head has been found inside a plate: on June 1, a student at Jiangxi Industrial Polytechnic in the provincial capital Nanchang posted a video showing “an object with teeth, eyes and nose” into his plate of rice in the college cafeteria, according to the South China Morning Post.

College officials were not immediately available for comment.

On social media, citizens expressed concerns about food safety following the two incidents.

“From now on, coffee shops will have to install security cameras and play the videos they record in the dining area,” wrote one user on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

In 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation reported that 518,600 cases of food safety violations were investigated and processed nationwide.

Although food safety in China has improved in recent years, inspections by market regulators have in the past year found more frequent problems between agricultural products and the catering industry, according to state media.