Hi °C | Lo °C THE Food Safety Authority of Ireland has no plans to carry out further tests for horse meat in beef products, despite a widening Europe-wide scandal.
Aldi confirmed it had discovered up to 100pc horse meat in pasta products on sale in Ireland until a few days ago.
Aldi said it had withdrawn its Today's Special frozen beef lasagne and Today's Special frozen spaghetti following an alert from French supplier Comigel. It carried out DNA testing on the products.
"Test demonstrated that the withdrawn products contained between 30pc and 100pc horse meat," Aldi said.
"This is completely unacceptable and like other affected companies, we feel angry and let down by our suppliers".
Aldi said it would no longer take any products from Comigel which also supplied food company Findus with lasagne containing 100pc horse meat.
The UK's Food Standards Agency has now demanded authenticity tests on all beef products such as burgers, meatballs and lasagne by next Friday.
Irish, Swedish and British stores have all been withdrawing the Findus products.
The FSAI said it would not be carrying out further tests on beef products itself, however, as food companies here were already carrying out their own.
FSAI chief executive Prof Alan Reilly said it was the industry's responsibility to ensure its food was what it was meant to be.
He said that the scandal had now spread far beyond Ireland and was very serious as major companies had been unable to secure their own supply lines.
"When a product contains 100pc horse meat it did not get there by accident and you can more reasonably assume it was deliberately added," he said on RTE.
"It's not just confined – as we thought initially – to Ireland. This has spread to France, to Luxembourg, to the UK, Poland are involved and the Netherlands. So it really is a European-wide problem that we have," he said.
Horse meat had been traced as coming from Romania to France to Luxembourg where it ended up in lasagnes made by Comigel, he said.
The FSAI said it had contacted retailers to ensure they were withdrawing Findus beef lasagne products.
Risk
Prof Reilly also advised consumers that if they had purchased the contaminated lasagne they should not eat it as there was a small health risk if it contained meat from horses treated with the animal drug phenylbutazone or "bute".
Fianna Fail agriculture spokesman Eamon O Cuiv called for a more stringent approach to testing by the authorities to restore consumer confidence in Irish beef.
"If the FSAI carry out independent tests it will go a long way to easing public concerns," he said.
He also called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney to seek Europe-wide testing.
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said he had a "lengthy and very constructive meeting with the Polish minister" in Brussels regarding the source of horse meat in burgers here.
Tesco said it had been notified on Monday of the problem with the Findus lasagne and withdrew it immediately, then also took its Tesco Value spaghetti bolognese off the shelves as a precaution on Tuesday because it was made in the same factory.
Supervalu and Centra said they did not stock Findus lasagnes or any own-brand products from the French supplier Comigel. Dunnes did not respond to a query.
Freeza Meats in Newry, which was found to be unwittingly storing meat containing 80pc horse meat for a Monaghan meat trader, said official tests on its own burgers had come back completely clear, vindicating its quality production.
Irish Independent
