Horsemeat: PM vows ‘full intervention of the law’

The prime minister said it is “completely unacceptable” that people have been buying products that have been labelled as beef, when the products contained horsemeat.

“If there has been criminal activity there should be the full intervention of the law.”

He said the government had agreed a toughter inspection regime, had asked schools and hospitals to check with suppliers to ensure they have a proper testing regime, and had asked for “meaningful tests” from retailers and producers, the results of which “will be published in full”.

Relentless investigation

he FSA has pledged a relentless investigation, until there is “nothing left to find”, into allegations of horsemeat being passed off as beef in the UK after finding evidence of the “blatant misleading of customers”.

On Tuesday, police raided the two plants in Yorkshire and west Wales, “detaining” meat, seizing paperwork and suspending operations.

Andrew Rhodes, FSA director of operations, told BBC Breakfast that he was alleging that horsemeat was being passed off as beef.

“The Food Standards Agency is a science and evidence-led organisation and we don’t do things lightly. We have very good evidence to support the actions that we have taken.

“Indeed we interviewed people on that site near Aberystwyth yesterday and those people confirmed that they received the goods that we believed they received and they told us what they had done with them.

“We are very clear on what has happened there.

“That is why we have seized all the meat that is there, that is why we have seized all the paperwork and that is why we involved the police both in Dyfed Powys and also in West Yorkshire.”

‘Not a raid’

Slaughterhouse owner Peter Boddy, of the Yorkshire premises visited by the FSA on Tuesday, he would co-operate with the FSA and said the action had not been a raid.

He told ITV: “It was not a raid – they are welcome to visit whenever they want. They just wanted to see my records, which I will be showing them.”

Watch more: Horsemeat scandal - how do we know what we are eating?

Dafydd Raw Rees, of Farmbox Meats, the meat plant in Aberystwyth, west Wales, told Channel 4 News: “I’ve nothing to hide. The FSA have accused me before establishing the truth.

“There will be developments here and then it will become clear there’s nothing going on. But I can’t say anymore now.”

EU summit

In Brussels for an emergency meeting with EU counterparts, the UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson told reporters that he wanted a much more widespread use of DNA testing of processed meat products, during and after manufacture and called for a much greater and more speedy exchange of information between food standard organisations in member states.

Mr Paterson also said that he believed agreement could be reached to mark the country of origin on products, and warned that Europol should be called in if criminal activity was found.

Mr Paterson has also met representatives of the Industry of Grocery Distribution, to discuss plans for a new quarterly system of food tests.

“This is absolutely shocking. It’s totally unacceptable if any business in the UK is defrauding the public by passing off horsemeat as beef,” he said.

“I expect the full force of the law to be brought down on anyone involved in this kind of activity.”

Germany and Switzerland involved

Germany said it was investigating a consignment of beef lasagna sent from Luxembourg to an unnamed retailer in North Rhine-Westphalia on suspicion it might contain horsemeat, while the Swiss supermarket chain Coop confirmed on Wednesday that it had found horsemeat in its own-brand lasange, which it withdrew from sale earlier in the week. The products were supplied by the same French firm, Comigel, that had made contaminated Findus products sold in British supermarkets.

On Tuesday Sweden’s food safety authority said it would test a wide range of frozen meat products sold in supermarkets to check whether they contain horsemeat and have been mislabelled.

Ahead of the meeting in Brussels, the EU’s health chief said meat products had been fraudulently or negligently labelled and all countries who had handled it were under suspicion (see video, below).

Toni Borg, the EU’s health and consumer affairs commissioner, said: “It is evident that somewhere down the line, someone … has fraudulently or perhaps negligently labelled a product in a deceptive way.

“We have to defend the internal market against any unreasonable unilateral actions by anyone against meat products because it would create terrible precedent.”

Tainted products

The news comes as Waitrose announced it has withdrawn its beef essential British frozen meatballs after pork was found in two batches.

Waitrose has said it will set up its own “UK capability” to supply its frozen meat products. The meat for frozen products will come from the Dovecote Park facility in Yorkshire, which already supplies Waitrose’s fresh meat. All the beef processed at Dovecote Park comes from “a known and trusted group of British farmers”, Waitrose said.

Mark Price, Waitrose managing director, said: “Our customers rightly expect the highest standards of product quality and integrity from us and we won’t let anything stand in the way of our delivering this.”

On Monday Tesco confirmed it had found horsemeat in its everyday value spaghetti bolognese, and the week before Findus confirmed some of its ready meal lasagnes had been found to be 100 per cent horsemeat.

Results of a series of “unprecedented” tests in beef products in the UK are expected on Friday,

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

The National Beef Association (NBA) has suggested the addition of the words “United Kingdom origin” to packaging to prevent “further cheating” by suppliers.