2013 horse meat scandal

[4] While the presence of undeclared meat was not a health issue, the scandal revealed a major breakdown in the traceability of the food supply chain, and the risk that harmful ingredients could have been included as well.

[citation needed] The next day, 15 January 2013, the FSAI advised the five retailers concerned, Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland, of their findings;[6] all these firms withdrew the offending products.

"[10][11] The second major UK report on the horse meat incident was conducted by Professor Chris Elliott, the Director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast.

The investigation of the overall incident, overseen by an independent expert... included an audit of ABP Food Group's plant in Nenagh, Ireland... found no evidence of contamination in the supply chain."

[26][27][28] Food wholesaler Makro, supplier to the restaurant and pub industry,[29] announced that some of its frozen burgers supplied by Silvercrest tested positive for horse DNA.

[31] Spanghero imported meat from Romania and sold it on to another French company, Comigel, which made frozen ready meals at its factory in Luxembourg.

French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoît Hamon said the meat had left Romania clearly and correctly labelled as horse and that it was afterwards that it was relabelled as beef by Spanghero.

[31] The investigation also said some blame may rest with Comigel, claiming the staff there should have noticed anomalies in the paperwork, and realised from the smell and look of the meat once it was defrosted that it was not beef.

[33] The source of the horse meat was third party supplier Comigel, a French-headquartered frozen ready meal producer, from its subsidiary Tavola factory in Capellen, Luxembourg.

On the same day, Findus UK published a public apology on its website, also announcing that, following DNA testing, three of its products were found to contain horse tissue.

[40] Findus Sverige AB also announced a recall of its 375 gram packs of ready-made single-portion lasagne (code 63957), and published a contact number for customers who had already purchased the products.

[citation needed] The Swiss-based company Nestlé reported on 18 February 2013 that it had found more than 1% horse DNA in two beef pasta products.

[45] All of the frozen beef products produced by Sodexo, "one of the largest private catering businesses in Britain",[46] were withdrawn on 22 February 2013 following the discovery of horse DNA in a sample.

[46] On 1 March the Department of Food and Veterinary of Lithuania announced that horse meat was found in three canned beef brands sold by Latvian company Kuršu Zeme.

[48] On 10 April 2013, it was reported that two Dutch trading companies owned by the same person who had previously been investigated by food safety officials may have supplied 50,000 metric tonnes of adulterated beef containing horse meat since January 2011.

[52] Compass Group was the world's biggest catering firm at the time and discovered through conducting tests that it was unknowingly supplying concealed horse meat in food products to a "small number" of schools in Northern Ireland.

[53][54][55][56][57][58] Whitbread, which was at the time Britain's biggest hotel group, also discovered through tests that it had unknowingly sold concealed horse meat in food products.

[65] Additional concerns included allegations that a "French plant which handled horse meat sold in Britain as beef has previously been at the centre of a major E.coli discovery".

[72] In April 2013, the FSA reported it had not only found more than 1% horse DNA in Asda's 340 gram tins of "Smart Price Corned Beef" but it also contained four ppb of phenylbutazone, marking the first time since the start of the scandal that bute had been detected in a meat product in the UK food chain.

[73][74] However, one problem raised was over documentation; all of the UK animals with phenylbutazone contamination tested in early 2013 possessed a "horse passport" that allowed the carcasses to be sold for human consumption.

[81] Some experts and UK government officials have raised concerns that horse meat from Romania could be contaminated with equine infectious anaemia (EIA).

[90] Another article points out that "Long business supply chains are corruptible and can hide a multitude of crimes if no one checks for fraud or criminal activity".

[93] On 15 March 2013 it was confirmed by a Westminster survey on health and safety that pig DNA had been found in halal chicken sausages produced for schools.

[99] Following the meeting, EU agriculture ministers announced a three-month coordinated control plan of DNA testing of processed meat across the European Union.

[100] The plan, adopted 19 February 2013, called for 2,500 random tests on processed food for horse DNA and 4,000 for phenylbutazone (bute), beginning in March 2013, with initial results announced on 15 April 2013.

The Hague-based Europol would handle co-ordination of the investigations among national authorities and any raids on premises as well as arrests on suspicion of criminal conspiracy to defraud.

[106] In October Barry Gardiner MP, the UK shadow Environment minister criticised the lack of prosecutions of leading players ten months after David Cameron promised that everything possible would be done to deal with a "very shocking" crime.

Gardiner said "The extraordinary thing is that because of its clout, industry has been able to commit what appears to be a criminal offence – selling the public horsemeat falsely labelled as beef – and just say they are sorry and didn't know.

"[107] On 26 August 2016, Andronicos Sideras, owner of Dinos and Sons Ltd, was charged with conspiring with Ulrich Nielsen and Alex Ostler-Beech, of Flexi Foods, to sell horsemeat as beef between 1 January 2012 – 31 October 2012 by the City of London Police.

Quantitative results from Identigen lab indicates that only 1 of 10 burgers tests showed an estimated low 29% level of equine (horse) DNA.