File photo:CGTN

The international fast food chains Burger King China said it is looking into allegations that a franchisee served expired food ingredients in several restaurants in China and apologized for betraying the trust of consumers.

The incident reportedly took place at some Burger King restaurants in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi Province where managers and staff reportedly replaced labels to show a later expiry date, and used moldy food ingredients, according to China's annual consumer-right gala "315," which refers to international consumer rights day on March 15, on Thursday.

Burger King China said it would immediately close the restaurants and set up a working group to investigate the allegation, the company said in a statement posted on its official Weibo account on Thursday evening.

"It is our management that has betrayed the trust of the majority of consumers in Burger King, for which we deeply apologize," the statement said, noting that they will fully cooperate with any government investigation.

The restaurants that mentioned in the report belong to a single franchisee and the behavior of these restaurants seriously deviated from the company's business doctrine, which is "customer is king," the company stressed.

The case went viral on the internet, quickly becoming the most-searched topic on Sina Weibo on Thursday.

Many netizens said that they wouldn't eat at Burger King, while others expressed shock at the allegations.

"I think we should boycott such unscrupulous businesses, at least for a while, let them feel pain, otherwise the businesses will not be rectified," a netizen named Neihan Taizhang said.

As one of the largest fast food chains in the world, Burger King entered the Chinese market in 2005 and has more than 1,000 stores in the Chinese mainland, the Global Times learned.