Horsemeat scandal: Tesco reveals 60% content in dish

 

Some Tesco Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese contains 60% horsemeat, DNA tests by the retailer have found.

 

The meal was withdrawn from sale last Tuesday and came from the same French factory producing Findus beef lasagne, at the centre of a current row over horsemeat..

 

Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has told MPs of plans to test all processed beef in the UK.

 

Romania has rejected claims that it was responsible for wrongly labelling horsemeat from its abattoirs.

 

Tesco took the frozen bolognese off the shelves when it found out Findus was concerned about the source of its meat at the same Comigel processing plant in Metz, north-eastern France.

 

It is one of several products that have been withdrawn from UK shelves amid the current scandal over horsemeat in food products in the UK and Europe.

 

Tesco Group technical director Tim Smith said: "The frozen Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese should contain only Irish beef from our approved suppliers. The source of the horsemeat is still under investigation by the relevant authorities.

 

"The level of contamination suggests that Comigel was not following the appropriate production process for our Tesco product and we will not take food from their facility again.

 

"We are very sorry that we have let customers down."

 

Mr Paterson told MPs he had called in representatives of all Britain's producers, retailers and distributors and "made it clear" he expected to see immediate testing of all processed beef products across the supply chain.

 

He said testing should take place every three months, and the Food Standards Agency should be notified of results.

 

He told representatives from the British Retail Consortium, the Food and Drink Federation, the British Meat Processors Association, the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, the Institute of Grocery Distribution and individual retailers that he expected to see:

 

"meaningful results from this testing by the end of this week;

"more testing of products for horse along the supply chain and that the industry must co-operate fully with the FSA on this;

"publication of industry test results every three months through the FSA;

"and that they let the FSA know as soon as they become aware of a potential problem in their products."

In the Commons, Labour's Mary Creagh accused Mr Paterson of being too slow to respond as incidents emerged.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21418342

Lauren Andersen ‏@sxyjellybean

PLEASE TESCO..don't have horse meat in your cottage pies! I eat that nearly everyday blllleeeaaaarrrrghhhhhhh

 

conner hicklin ‏@hicko94

“@KieranWright_94: Just bought a cucumber from Tesco. Turns out it's a horse's cock.” Lol

 

:lol:

conner hicklin ‏@hicko94

“@KieranWright_94: Just bought a cucumber from Tesco. Turns out it's a horse's cock.” Lol

 

:lol:

I'm waiting for a follow-up tweet re: tzatziki sauce

 

 

 

and someone needs to "fix" this picture to replace the cows with horses

 

 

Is it me your looking for?

 

We should be used to having horses for courses, seems someone took that at word-value

:lol:

 

Several companies have withdrawn meat products from sale after horsemeat content was found

 

Horsemeat row: slaughterhouse and meat firm raided

 

A slaughterhouse and a meat firm have been raided by police and officials probing alleged horsemeat mislabelling.

 

Peter Boddy Licensed Slaughterhouse, in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, and Farmbox Meats Ltd, of Llandre near Aberystwyth, have had work suspended.

 

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said it was unacceptable if UK firms were defrauding the public.

 

Meanwhile, Waitrose withdrew its Essential British Frozen Beef Meatballs after pork was detected in two batches.

 

They are the latest product to be withdrawn from UK shelves.

 

The Food Standards Agency suspended operations at both the raided premises, detained all meat found and seized paperwork, including customer lists from the two companies.

 

The West Yorkshire plant was thought to have supplied horse carcasses to the Aberystwyth plant, which were then allegedly sold on as beef for kebabs and burgers.

 

Both West Yorkshire and Dyfed-Powys police entered the premises with the FSA.

 

Mr Paterson said: "This is absolutely shocking. It's totally unacceptable if any business in the UK is defrauding the public by passing off horsemeat as beef. I expect the full force of the law to be brought down on anyone involved in this kind of activity."

 

FSA director of operation Andrew Rhodes said: "I ordered an audit of all horse-producing abattoirs in the UK after this issue first arose last month, and I was shocked to uncover what appears to be a blatant misleading of consumers.

 

"I have suspended both plants immediately while our investigations continue."

 

The Welsh minister for agriculture, Alun Davies, said: "Integrity and trust are essential in the food chain. I would be appalled if these allegations are proven.

 

"The Welsh Government is working closely with Defra (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the FSA to ensure this matter is dealt with swiftly and decisively."

 

The latest developments came as Mr Paterson held another meeting with the FSA, supermarkets and food producers to discuss the spreading horsemeat contamination scandal.

 

He told MPs during a Commons debate earlier that "too much is taken on trust" when it comes to verifying meat supplies.

 

At Waitrose, a spokeswoman said it had had "contradictory results" from tests on the frozen beef meatballs.

 

She said all had tested negative for horse DNA, but one test had indicated the presence of some pork.

 

"We have withdrawn two batches of these products as pork is not listed as a product in the recipe."

 

The products are 480g packs of 16 meatballs with a best before date of the end of June 13 and the end of August 13.

 

The raids today uncovered the first suspected instance of a UK abattoir passing off horse meat for beef, Mr Paterson said.

 

It came after the National Beef Association (NBA) yesterday suggested the addition of the words "United Kingdom origin" to packaging to prevent "further cheating" by suppliers on the Continent.

 

The scandal has spread across Europe as details of the elaborate supply chain in the meat industry emerge.

 

French consumer safety authorities said companies from Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as its own firms, were involved.

 

Mr Paterson will travel to Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the scandal with counterparts in EU countries.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21434077

Swedish lasagna has horsemeat in it too :thinking:

Learned that, apparently, the French Picard (frozen food) had the same supplier for its lasagna as Findus...:sick: .....I've eaten Picard's lasagna....lots of times.....:sick:

Horsemeat scandal: Birds Eye withdraws UK ready meals

 

The scandal began last month after horsemeat was found in frozen beefburgers

 

Horsemeat scandal: Birds Eye withdraws UK ready meals

 

Birds Eye has withdrawn three beef ready meals from supermarkets in the UK and Ireland as a precaution after horse DNA was found in a product in Belgium.

 

Birds Eye said its chilli con carne had tested positive for 2% horse DNA.

 

Meanwhile, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced results from 1,133 new tests on beef products.

 

There were six positive tests for horse DNA at a level of greater than 1% - all on products which have been withdrawn.

 

This second phase of the FSA's investigation saw 140 samples of beef-based ready meals checked for horse or pig DNA.

 

The tests covered a range of frozen, chilled or canned products that included lasagne, chilli con carne, cottage pie, ravioli, cannelloni and spaghetti bolognese.

 

The FSA has now carried out a total of 3,634 tests. It said more than 99% had come back negative.

 

However, 35 results, representing 13 products, contained 1% or more horse DNA.

 

They had all been previously identified and withdrawn from shelves with the exception of beef burgers, minced beef and halal minced beef from Sodexo, a French catering and facilities giant.

 

In the UK, Sodexo supplies food to schools and colleges, hospitals and via "meals on wheels", as well as running four prisons.

 

Though the company said it had withdrawn the relevant products, it would not give details of public sector institutions it supplied.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21543158

i wonder why they withdraw all the products they've found horsemeat in :thinking: if it's been there for a long time and nobody's got ill from eating it, then i don't see what the problem is... of course they can't keep producing food with horsemeat, but why withdraw what has already been produce? :confused:

They're not supposed to have horsemeat, they're supposed to be just beef. It also brings up potential issues of cross-contamination between the meats too

Horse meat is better for you than beef.

 

Although horse-meat in processed meat isn't the worst thing to worry about, all the other crap which goes into those products.

I see it th same way.... I mean at least it's not unhealthy or poisonios, so where is the trouble? In india they wouldn't eat cows....

Horse meat found in Taco Bell beef products in Britain

 

 

LONDON (AP) - Taco Bell is the latest restaurant chain to acknowledge that its food has been adulterated with horse meat, yanking a variety of ground beef products from its three British outlets and issuing an apology to its patrons Friday.

 

Meanwhile, in Iceland, a food official said his team had found a beef product from a local producer that contained no meat at all.

 

Chief meat inspector Kjartan Hreinsson said a brand of beef pie found at a Reykjavik supermarket had "no mammalian DNA."

 

"That was the peculiar thing," he said. "It was labeled as beef pie, so it should be beef pie."

 

It should be, but across Europe meat labeled as beef has been found to be contaminated with horse — from frozen food at supermarkets to fast food in restaurants and even school and hospital meals.

 

Authorities say the fraudulent labeling poses no health risk, but the scandal has drawn attention to the complex supply chains behind processed meat products.

 

Thousands of products have been tested, and found that contamination is relatively rare. Britain's Food Standards Agency said Friday that of more than 5,400 products tested in Britain, more than 99 percent were clear of horse. Still, a steady drumbeat of brands found to contain horse meat has kept the issue in the headlines. Taco Bell joins a long list of food providers — Nestle, Burger King, Tesco, Birds Eye, Findus and even Ikea — that have had to remove products amid horse meat revelations.

 

British authorities said Friday that horse DNA had also been found in Birds Eye spaghetti Bolognese and beef lasagna and spicy minced beef skewers from catering company Brakes, which supplies pubs and the House of Commons Food Service.

 

In a statement, Taco Bell owner Yum Brands Inc. said: "We apologize to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority."

 

The company's presence in Britain is tiny compared to its profile in the United States, where it has more than 5,600 restaurants. Taco Bell stressed that its U.S. restaurants do not use meat from Europe and are not affected.

 

Yum Brands' statement gave no further detail as to the nature of the supplier, and the company said it would not reveal the information as the matter was being investigated by Britain's Food Standards Agency. A spokesman could not immediately say how long the supplier had been providing food to Taco Bell, or how many customers were thought to have been affected.

 

As for the Icelandic non-meat pies, Hreinsson said they appeared to have been stuffed with some sort of vegetable matter. He said the municipal authorities are investigating.

 

link

There's Taco Bell in Britain? I used to love that, bet its horrible though.

I rather eat horsemeat instead of beef than rat meat instead of mutton :shocked2: