EU Orders Tests to Discover Scale Of Horsemeat Fraud

As President of the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers, Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, has chaired a meeting with the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, Tonio Borg and Ministers from Member States directly affected by the serious disclosures of mislabelling of processed meat products.

14 Feb 2013 --- The Minister said that, following the discovery in January by the FSAI meat authenticity survey of the presence of horse DNA in beef burgers, the issue had become a pan European problem as several other Member States subsequently found horse meat in a range of processed beef products. Minister Coveney pointed out that that the application of DNA testing technology had uncovered what appears to be a widespread fraud and mislabelling of certain processed products resulting in consumers being mislead.

At today’s meeting in Brussels, Ministers shared information on the extent of the problem and on the respective responses to identify the suspect point in the supply chain. The Commission and Ministers agreed to direct their respective competent authorities to cooperate closely and also agreed that an EU coordinated response was required.

In this context Minister Coveney welcomed a proposed recommendation from the Commissioner to introduce an EU-wide three month programme of control measures including random DNA testing of processed beef products in Member States and testing for horsemeat residues in slaughterhouses. The proposal is for testing to be carried out in all Member States on a proportional basis between the 1st and 31st of March. Overall some 2,500 samples of processed beef products will be taken across the EU and some 4,000 samples taken at slaughterhouses for phenythbutazone (‘bute’). These 4,000 samples will compromise of 2,500 samples of EU horsemeat and 1,500 samples from non-EU horsemeat.

The intention behind the programme is to publish the findings of the first month’s testing on 15th April following their presentation to the Commission. The results of this control programme would provide an evidence base for the possible consideration of further measures. The details of this recommendation will be tabled at a special meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health on Friday.

Following the meeting, Minister Coveney said he was pleased with the progress achieved and the prompt response by the Commission. He had already arranged that the matter would be discussed at the next Council of Agriculture Ministers on 25 February. “The FSAI survey has shown Ireland to be at the forefront of controls on food production and signifies the importance placed on ensuring, not only safe food for consumers, but equally on ensuring the integrity of the food supply chain. Consumers should rightly expect not to be misled by inaccurate labelling and must have confidence in knowing what they are eating.”

“Ireland will continue to give leadership in this area and will work with our EU partners to ensure new consumer assurance measures, including increased testing and more accurate labelling, are introduced”.

Following the EU meeting requested by the UK to address the current problem of horse meat in the food chain, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson issued the following statement:

“We came to Brussels to get coordinated action across Europe for the consumer so that they can have confidence in what they’re buying.”

“We’ve now reached agreement on a number of key issues so that the current unacceptable situation with horsemeat cannot happen again.”

“Importantly, we will introduce a three-month programme of random DNA testing of beef products, whether made in the EU or imported from elsewhere. It will begin 1 March and the first results will be published on 15 April.”

“Secondly, we agreed a new intelligence-sharing system so that new information about the current investigations can be shared immediately. This will enable other member states to act straight away if they have any suspicions that food businesses are not playing by the rules.”

“It will also allow Europol to co-ordinate investigations into criminal activity.”

“Because of the urgency with which we have to deal what is clearly an international issue, everyone agreed that the European Commission’s recommendations on labelling the origin of all processed meat should be accelerated and published as soon as possible. This is so that we can have more certainty on where our meat is coming from.”

“As we requested, what we’ve agreed will now be ironed out in an emergency meeting of food experts on Friday and in the next meeting of EU agriculture ministers on 25/26 February.”

A statement was also issued by Commissioner Borg on the findings of horse meat in meat products containing different type of meat. 

“Since we are talking about safety I want to take this opportunity to assure EU citizens that I am following very closely the situation that has arisen in the last few days in some EU Member States over fraudulent labelling of horsemeat contained in some food products.”

“Since the European Commission was informed, my services are working with national authorities to see that the source of the issue is properly identified and addressed.”

“In particular, we are working with the French, Romanian, Dutch, Luxembourg and British authorities and we have also called for this Friday an extraordinary meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain to discuss with all Member States the situation.”
 
“The EU food safety system is one of the safest in the world. Thanks to this system and its capacity for full traceability, national authorities are in a position to investigate this matter so as to find the source of the problem.”
 
“The European rules on traceability have allowed Member States to discover rapidly the origin and distribution chain of the fraudulent products. The EU Rapid Alert system in turn also allows us to circulate in all 27 EU countries all information related to the investigations on this scandal. I hope that the national investigations will uncover soon the culprits.”

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) confirmed that results of testing of minced beef products carried out so far by its members will be published during Friday (15 February).

The BRC's food retailing members agreed with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Environment Secretary Owen Paterson last weekend that they would provide the results they have available by the end of this week.

At Prime Minister's Questions today (Wednesday), David Cameron said, "We have also asked for meaningful tests from retailers and producers, and those will be published in full."

Retailers took decisive action after the first incident in mid-January and targeted testing for the presence of horsemeat in minced beef products has been underway since then.

The BRC will be collating all the results available to-date and publishing sector-wide figures that show:

-The total number of tests carried out by UK food retailers.

-The proportion of minced beef products they have tested so far.

-The number of products that have tested positive or negative against the FSA's threshold.