Reporting by Neil Maidment at Yahoo News
Tesco said the source of the horse meat was still under investigation..
LONDON – Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, said on Monday it had found horse DNA exceeding 60 percent in some of its own-brand frozen spaghetti bolognese meals withdrawn from stores last week.
Tesco said tests carried out since pulling the product last Wednesday had identified the presence of horse DNA, with most positive results at a trace level of less than one percent. However, three tests showed horse DNA levels of over 60 percent.
None of its tests were positive for the potentially harmful drug known as bute – a common, anti-inflammatory painkiller for sporting horses but banned for animals intended for eventual human consumption, it said.
The news is the latest installment in a scandal that has rocked the food industry in Britain and across Europe. Investigations into suppliers have been launched in recent weeks after the discovery that beef products sold to some of Britain’s major supermarkets and fast-food chain Burger King contained horsemeat.
Tesco had already dropped an Irish supplier of frozen beef burgers that had also tested positive for horse DNA.
The firm had pulled its frozen Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese product last week as a precaution after the manufacturer Findus withdrew its beef products on the advice of its French supplier Comigel, which also supplies Tesco.
Findus said last week that some of its beef lasagne meals had contained horse meat.
On Monday, Tesco said the source of the horse meat was still under investigation by the relevant authorities, but added that it would not take food from Comigel’s facility again.
“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,” Tesco said, adding that it had let customers down.
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Related Articles
- Tesco confirms horse meat in spaghetti bolognese (horsetalk.co.nz)
- More frozen beef products found with horse meat (horsetalk.co.nz)
- Tesco says some of its value spaghetti bolognese contains 60% horsemeat (guardian.co.uk)
- Top News: Tesco value bolognese 60% horsemeat (bbc.co.uk)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
More PR work from Tesco..
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RT—would you explain why comments go up immediately at times and at others, the Word Press site won’t take any of my comments. The last three stories, they failed to show
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So, this post, of no importance for the reader, went right up!
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Links, Susan, your links did it…I have cleared it.
>________________________________
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The link pulled it over into the spam folder…links will do that.
>________________________________
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Sorry, I am not a computer person at all, so don’t know what I am doing that makes this happen!
What are my ‘links’ ? does my note go to YOUR spam folder? Sorry to be such a dud!
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My son helped me figure out the “links” snafu, RT. Would you help me understand what KIND of links send my remarks astray? Seems lots of folks put in links, so maybe there is some secret to getting them to post?
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I love how the journalist writes that they tested for bute and none was found.
What a hoot!
Kiss my arse.. I can’t believe the ignorant, stupid, incompetent, stuff coming out of retailers, elected officials and regulators mouths across the EU.Some of it is just plain, flat out lying. It is jaw dropping!,
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Tho this sickens me, I am glad it is coming to light!
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All of this finger pointing by the various companies and various countries is confusing [and “nobody” seems to have done anything wrong?] so I thought I would look a bit further and found this:
Click to access horses_EU_facts_figures_EU_horsemeat_trade.pdf
I hope someone can use this and follow up to show we Americans where our American horses (sent to Canada and Mexico for slaughter) go and how they might be in the lasagna and spaghetti and sausage that the articles refer to.
Here are just a couple of sentences I read in this article:
“In addition to the circa 200,000 horses slaughtered for human consumption within the EU, there
is also a flourishing, multimillion trade in horsemeat exported from third countries. Canada,
Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay are the main exporters of horsemeat to the EU.”
Take a look at the tables within this link – especially the horse meat exported from Canada and Mexico. And … can someone please explain to me how horse meat can be exported from the United States since the closing of the horse slaughter plants in 2007 [table 4]???
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I think the export numbers from the US are based on live ships to the processing countries.
As I’ve said in the past, the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) and USDA do track these numbers. Although USMEF is a trade/lobbying organization, USDA actually performs cursory inspections, mostly paperwork by itself or through cooperative agreements with state agencies.
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derp
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public Radio blows it on horse slaughter–but I can’t show the link for you to listen–it’s rejected–
Advocates —I did a slow burn listening to PRI’s Marco Werman on “the World” make a sly and smirky investigation into the repercussions of the horse meat scandal in Europe. He interviews a purveyor of “Exotic Meats” who claims the scandal has resulted in a huge increase of sales in horse meat for his “business”, which Mr Werman seemed to find quirky and delightful. The interviewee actually made a slight reference to the safety and inspection process, the vaunted “passport system” which has been shown to be corrupted and fraudulent, but Werman failed to question this or follow the clue. Please listen and send remarks to the PRI site or Werman’s FB site—I did, and roundly excoriated his pathetic story, setting him straight on some of the public health facts.
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98% of media don’t have a clue as to what they are reporting on when it comes to HCHS and US wild equine issues.
I can only think of 2: Vickery and Andrew Cohen.
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FDA laws if it says beef is it fraud to not say horse? I am wondering. I think they should list the actuate animal on the label..
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After all of these investigations, who has any desire to eat beef!!!!!
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Reblogged this on Serenity's Musings.
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Ironically, TESCO is able to track every second of their warehouse workers’ movements with electronic armbands, but can’t keep track of thousands (if not millions) of pounds of meat. I don’t believe they didn’t know… they just didn’t expect to get caught.
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