Horse Meat Again Found Labeled As ‘Beef’ In British Supermarkets

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Horse meat has once again been detected in “beef” products sold in Great Britain.

The British equivalent of the FDA — the Food Standards Agency (FSA) — discovered horse DNA in canned beef sold in discount stores in Northern Ireland and England. This is the second time in less than a year that horse meat has been discovered in beef products in the United Kingdom.

“The FSA has been informed that a batch of canned sliced beef that was found to contain horse DNA has been removed from sale,” a press release noted. Inspectors discovered that cans of Food Hall Sliced Beef and Gravy contained 1 to 5 percent horse meat, British newspapers reported. The canned meat was yanked off the shelves as soon as the equine DNA was discovered.

The canned meat apparently came from Romania, which like Britain is part of the European Union. It was sold through Quality Save and Home Bargains, two chains of discount stores.

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The canned meat is only the latest round of what the British press is calling the “horse meat scandal.” As previously reported by Off The Grid News, early in 2013 tens of millions of burgers and other frozen products were yanked from shelves at some of Britain’s largest supermarkets after they were found to contain horse meat. There have also been rumors that dog meat was sold at some British restaurants.

British Burger Kings

Horse meat was also found in some burgers for sale at Burger King in the United Kingdom. A recent investigation by The Guardian newspaper shows how horse meat ends up in British kitchens.

Some of the details uncovered include:

• The horse meat burgers were produced by ABP (Anglo-Irish Beef Processors), the largest beef processor in Europe. ABP is owned by billionaire Larry Goodman and in the past, Goodman has been accused of fraud, tax evasion and attempts to pass off inferior meat as higher quality.
• ABP bought horse meat from a Dutch businessman named Willy Selten. Selten was recently arrested for fraud after police discovered that boxes of “beef” at his factory near Rotterdam contained 21 percent horse meat.
• Some of Selten’s employees told The Guardian that he had paid them cash to cut up horse meat and mix it with beef.
• Selten’s employees told reporters that some of the beef they cut up was so rotten it was green.
• Some of the meat was so rotten, that the employees had to tie towels to their faces to keep the fumes from making them sick.
• Selten bought horse meat from a slaughterhouse in Cheshire, England named Red Lion. Red Lion bought horses from British and Irish families and slaughtered them. That means some families may have eaten meat from riding horses or family pets they had to sell because of the poor economy.
• Authorities have been trying to keep the details of how horse meat ended up on the dinner table from the British public.

The scandal earlier this year involved food sold at Tesco, Aldi and Findus.

A free trade deal that could bring horse meat to US?

The horse meat scandal should concern Americans because the Obama administration is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. That’s a free trade deal that would allow the direct import of European food into the United States

As Off The Grid News recently reported, critics believe that this deal and another called the Trans-Pacific Partnership could undermine food safety regulations in the United States. The terms of these deals could replace U.S. food regulations with the terms of the treaties.