Spotlight on ingredients suppliers in horse meat scandal

ANALYSIS IS urgently being carried out by the meat companies implicated in the investigation by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), following the discovery that one Tesco beef burger contained 29% horse meat.

 

The pressure is on ingredients suppliers over the traces as the investigation gathers momentum.

 

ABP, which owns two of the businesses named by the FSAI, Silvercrest Foods and Dalepak Hambleton are said to be carrying out a large number of DNA tests themselves.

 

In a statement, an ABP spokesman said that the companies only buy meat from licensed and approved EU suppliers. The results relate only to where beef products have been sourced by those suppliers from the Continent. According to the statement only a small percentage of meat is currently procured from outside of the UK & Ireland.

 

The firm is said to be considering its options in respect of the two suppliers concerned in order to maintain the “integrity” of the supply chain and restore consumer confidence.

 

ABP has since announced that it will introduce a new testing regime, including DNA Testing, for all meat products following the FSAI findings.

 

Liffey Meats, the third firm to be implicated, were keen to emphasise that the levels of equine DNA detected were minute and stated that whilst it has never produced, purchased or traded any equine products, the firm does import some raw ingredients as part of the manufacturing process, concluding that this is believed to be the source of the aforementioned DNA traces found in some of its products.