Customers have vowed to stop buying a company's products after a factory worker apparently urinated on jalapeno peppers that were later canned and sold to the public.

A photo showing the employee with his pants and underwear pulled down past his buttocks at the production line has gone viral on the internet.

The image was snapped by a co-worker at a Mexico City factory belonging to La Costena, which sells products such as pickled jalapeno peppers and refried beans at major grocery stores.

The photograph - showing an employee with his pants down - was taken at a La Costena factory in Mexico

La Costena said the men in the photo are no longer employed by the company.

The man with his pants lowered was in the background of a selfie snapped by a fellow La Costena employee at the factory.

The worker - wearing a hygiene suit complete with a hairnet and face mask - was at the very least pretending to urinate on peppers on a conveyor belt when he posed for the photo.

After the image circulated online, La Costena issued a statement to reassure consumers that the photo would have been taken before the hygiene process.

In a statement, La Costena said the photo was taken before the peppers were washed and cooked

La Costena claimed the food was never put at risk.

'We would like to apologize for the conduct of two ex-temporary employees who appear in the photo which in no way reflects the values of the company or our method of working,' the company said in a statement. 'We would like to assure the public that they were working in the initial phase of production, meaning that the products were never compromised as afterwards the chilies are washed and cooked.

'Independently of the vulgarity and bad taste manifested irresponsibly by those who appear in this photo, our hygiene and quality was not put in jeopardy,' the statement added.'