France is the latest country to be implicated in the horse meat scandal with the news that frozen beef meals produced by French manufacturer Comigel for Findus UK contain horse meat. Comigel alerted Findus and Aldi that a number of its frozen bolognese and lasagne products did not conform and advised the removal of Findus beef lasagne, Aldi's Today's Special frozen beef lasagne and Today's Special frozen spaghetti bolognese. It has since been confirmed that the Findus products do indeed contain horse meat.
"Following a thorough investigation, Findus UK can confirm that testing of its beef lasagne, produced by a third-party supplier and not by Findus, has revealed some product containing horse meat," a spokesperson for the company told just-food.
Tesco has removed its Everyday Value spaghetti bolognese from its shelves as a precaution as it is produced at the same location. "There is no evidence that our product has been contaminated and the meat used in the Findus product is not used in our product. However, we have decided to withdraw the product pending the results of our own tests," Tesco said.
Across the water, ABP Food Group, the owner of the Silvercrest and Dalepck facilities implicated in the debacle, has said that Irish meat importer McAdam Food Service supplied it with the ingredients containing the horse DNA which was highlighted by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, resulting in the withdrawal of frozen beef burgers by several Irish and UK retailers. Silvercrest has since been dropped as a supplier by Tesco, The Co-operative and Aldi as well as fast food chain Burger King.
In a statement ABP said, "Silvercrest purchased Polish beef products from McAdam Food Service. It appears now that, while Silvercrest purchased these beef products in good faith, horse DNA originating in Poland was present in some of these products."
Earlier this week raw ingredients stored by McAdam and a second Irish group, Rangeland Foods, were found to contain high proportions of equine DNA. Meat filler at the Rangeland facility in county Monaghan contained 75 per cent horse meat, while tests at the McAdam site showed 80 per cent horse meat. It is reported that McAdam imported the meat from Poland through UK supplier Flexi Foods, and that there was "clearly an issue" with its supplier. In a statement the group said, "McAdam Foods states and confirms that any such products were bought and imported on the basis of their being ordered, documented, labelled and understood to be beef, and nothing else." The group added, “responsibility for the provenance of the shipment lay with the UK supplier.”
McAdam had stored the consignment of meat in question at the facility of Newry-based Freeza Meats. Freeza supplies UK retailer Asda with frozen beef burgers and the retailer has since wtihdrawn the products from its shelves.
Ireland's minister for agriculture, Simon Coveney, has called upon the Garda Síochána (the Irish police force) to aid investigations. (7 Feb)
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Sadhbh Connor
