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EU Horse Meat Testing On The Way

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EU Horse Meat Testing On The Way

The horse meat scandal that has grabbed headlines in the UK and Ireland is spreading across Europe with retailers in eight countries withdrawing products. Fears of a pan-European labeling fraud have come to light as grocery retailers in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands are the latest to withdraw some frozen beef meals from their shelves following the contamination of the products with horse meat.

Following recent revelations in the UK that frozen beef meals sold by Findus and Tesco, among others, contain horse meat, the Metro Group-owned Real supermarket chain in Germany has recalled 400g packs of its own brand frozen lasagne, TiP Lasagne Bolognese. Tests on Wednesday (13 Feb) displayed horse DNA in the product. A second German retailer, Kaiser's Tengelmann, has withdrawn its private label lasagne as a precaution. While it has not confirmed whether horse meat has been found in the product, it was produced by Comigel, the French manufacturer implicated in the issue.

In Sweden ICA, Axfood and Coop have all recalled their own brand frozen lasagnes following positive tests for equine DNA. Coop in Switzerland has also removed the Comigel-produced frozen lasagne in its private label range following a similar discovery.

Ahold's supermarket banner Albert Heijn announced on Wednesday (13 Feb) that its Euroshopper frozen lasagne, which was reported to have been withdrawn from sale the previous Friday (8 Feb), had been shown to contain horse meat. Other Dutch retailers Boni and Plus have withdrawn similar products ahead of tests.

Several similar products have been withdrawn by retailers in Norway as a precautionary measure.

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So far, abattoirs, processors and meat traders in France, Poland, Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands have been implicated in the controversey that has been labelled by some as a pan-European labelling fraud.

EU Testing Proposal

As the scandal spreads across the continent, it has become an issue for the European Union. Ireland's agriculture minister Simon Coveney has called for a "European solution" to the transportation and movement of horse meat labelled as beef across EU member states. "This is impacting on the integrity of the food chain, which is a really significant issue for a lot of countries. Now that we know this is a European problem, we need a European solution," he said.

Testing on meat products to be carried out in all EU member states has been proposed by European Commissioner for Health Tonio Borg as a way to restore consumer confidence. The testing would comprise of DNA analysis of meat products, as well as testing for the presence of the bute drug used to treat horses.

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Borg said the proposal was that 2,500 samples would be chosen for the DNA test and 4,000 for the bute test, which would vary depending on the population size and scale of meat production in each member state. He told the press, "We are treating it as a case of fraudulent - I wouldn’t call it negligent, I would call it fraudulent - misuse of the labelling system for economic gain and Europol will co-ordinate the different criminal investigations."

The EU Commission's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health will decide whether or not to adopt the proposal for the three-month testing of meat, which is reported to begin 1 March.

Borg also said that potential changes to EU labeling regulations to enforce the inclusion of the country of origin on processed meat products would be fast-tracked by the Commission. Currently only labelling on fresh beef requires the country of origin although this is expected to be extended to fresh lamb, pork and poultry from December 2014.

However, there are concerns that the length and complexity of the supply chain process would make this difficult to enforce in practice. (14 Feb)

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© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Sadhbh Connor

 

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