French supermarket Carrefour has announced it's removed dog meat products from two of its outlets in China.

The news comes amid ongoing backlash against the consumption of dog meat in the country.

But perhaps what comes as a bigger surprise is that the supermarket giant carried dog meat in the first place.

Carrefour, which has more than 200 stores in China, promised back in 2012 that it would remove dog meat from its shelves, when approached by Animals Asia, an animal rights group.

However, according to Animals Asia, a follow-up visit to the store in May 2017 — the dog meat products were still on sale.

"[We] discovered two branches in the Chinese city of Xuzhou with dog meat products openly on sale, including 'turtle-juiced dog meat'", said Animals Asia on its website.

The product appears to be a dish of dog meat steeped in a broth made of turtle meat and vinegar.

"No doubt this will come as a shock to their millions of customers in Europe and beyond," said the animal rights group.

Thousands of users later signed a petition by Animals Asia asking for Carrefour to remove its dog meat products.

Animals Asia later told Mashable that it had independently verified that Carrefour had removed its dog meat products.

"We are pleased that Carrefour has made the decision to end their relationship with China's dog meat industry," said Animals Asia Founder and CEO Jill Robinson MBE.

"It is thanks to animal lovers round the world signing and sharing that this situation ended so quickly."

Consuming dog meat isn't illegal in China, but it's seldom practised by the younger generation, and seen more as a traditional dish. The government hasn't banned dog meat yet, but it's made steps recently to clamp down on the sale of dogs at the notorious Yulin dog meat festival.

"As we have received similar assurances from Carrefour in the past that they will no longer sell dog meat products, we think the right thing for them to do now is to publicly assure their customers that they will never again profit from the cruelty of the dog meat industry," added Ms Robinson.

Carrefour has over 10,000 outlets across 30 countries worldwide.

According to animal activists the Humane Society International, China allegedly kills more than 10 million dogs annually for human consumption.

Mashable has reached out to Carrefour for comment.