Nestlé, the world's largest food manufacturer, has been drawn into the horse meat debacle, withdrawing two beef products from sale in Italy and Spain on Monday (18 Feb), as well as a frozen beef product for the catering sector in France. Traces of equine DNA were found in two products made from beef supplied by German company H.J. Schypke.
The French food giant has removed its chilled Buitoni beef ravioli and beef tortellini from sale in Italy and Spain as well as recalling its frozen catering product Lasagnes à la Bolognaise Gourmandes, made in France by Nestlé Professional.
In a statement, Nestlé said, "We are now suspending deliveries of all our finished products produced using beef supplied by a German firm, H.J. Schypke, a subcontractor of one of our suppliers, JBS Toledo N.V."
The levels of horse meat in the products were above the one per cent threshold the UK's Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence, Nestlé said. It added that it has plans to "enhance" its quality assurance programme by adding new tests on beef for horse DNA prior to production in Europe.
JBS Toledo is the Belgian arm of the Brazilian-based JBS S.A., the world's largest beef producer by sales. JBS has distanced itself from the scandal, clarifying in a statement that German supplier H.J. Schypke “is not in any way part of the JBS Group”.
“In this specific case, from the outset of supply, all operational and logistical processes were carried out by the German supplier who delivered the product to the final client.”
H. J. Schypke was subcontracted by JBS Toledo and all contracts have now been suspended and the group will not market European beef until "confidence is restored in the European beef supply chain."
The statement emphasised that no JBS products had been implicate in the scandal. (19 Feb)
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Gordon Hunt
