Committee to probe horse meat in burgers

Anne McIntosh, MP for Thirsk, Malton and Filey and Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, last night said a public evidence session on contamination of beef products would take place on Wednesday, January 30.

“The session is intended to focus on the effectiveness of traceability, labelling and hygiene standards in the food supply chain and the role of government, food processors and retailers,” she said.

Environment minister David Heath said standards were generally very high in the British food industry and backed the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) risk-based checking system.

Answering an urgent question from Labour’s shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh in the Commons, Mr Heath acknowledged the seriousness of the discovery. He said: “It is very important neither you, nor anyone else in this House, talks down the British food industry at a time when the standards in that industry are of a very high level.

“Because something has been discovered in Ireland, which is serious, which may lead to criminal proceedings, does not undermine the very serious efforts which are taken by retailers, by processors and by producers in this country to ensure traceability and ensure standards of food that are available to consumers.”

Supermarket giant Tesco has placed full-page adverts in a number of national newspapers apologising to customers for selling beef burgers containing horse meat. The apology came as a reported £300m was wiped off Tesco’s stock market value.

Aldi, Lidl and Iceland have also withdrawn frozen beefburgers from their shelves after they were found to be contaminated with horse meat. Sainsbury’s, Asda and the Co-op later withdrew some frozen products but stressed that the move was “purely precautionary” and they had not been found to be selling contaminated food.