Sainsbury's, Asda and the Cooperative are the latest UK supermarket chains to recall their private label beef burgers from the shelves following the horse meat debacle. It emerged this week that several retailers in the UK and Ireland, including Tesco, Lidl and Aldi, had been found to be selling private label beef burger products which contained pig and horse DNA.
Tesco's Everyday Value beef burgers were found to contain 29.2 per cent horse meat. All of the retailers have withdrawn the affected products from the shelves while investigations are ongoing at the meat processing plants which supplied the products.
While Sainsbury's, Asda and the Cooperative's have not had their own brand beef burgers affected, the retailers said they have withdrawn products from the shelves which came from the implicated processors involved as a precautionary measure. Sainsbury's has taken 13 private label frozen burger products from its shelves as they were produced by Dalepack, Tesco's UK-based ABP-owned supplier. Asda and the Cooperative have removed frozen burgers sourced from Silvercrest, the Irish processor also owned by ABP. A third compnay, Liffey Meats, is also involved.
A study by Ireland's food safety authority (FSAI) found horsemeat in more than a third of products tested. 27 frozen beef burger products were analysed by the FSAI, which found that 10, or 37 per cent, contained horsemeat, while pig DNA in 85 per cent of burgers tested.
Lidl, Aldi Stores (Ireland), Tesco, Iceland and Dunnes Stores have all removed private label beef burgers as a result. It is thought that the contamination came from ingredients sourced fromsuppliers in Spain and the Netherlands. (18 Jan)
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Sadhbh Connor
