Germany plans tighter meat controls

Tighter controls on meat products and stronger penalties for companies that violate food-labelling rules are planned for Germany.

Germany plans tighter meat controls

Tighter controls on meat products and stronger penalties for companies that violate food-labelling rules are planned for Germany.

The new rules are being broguth in as more items marketed as “all beef” were pulled from supermarket shelves after testing positive for horse meat.

And the scandal is spreading further, with the BBC reporting that beef pasta meals have been removed from shelves in Italy and Spain after tests revealed traces of horse DNA.

Germany’s consumer protection minister Ilse Aigner and her state counterparts announced a 10-point plan seeking to allay Germans’ fears after five national supermarkets recalled lasagne, chilli, tortelloni and goulash – all with traces of horse meat.

German discount supermarket Lidl said yesterday it had recalled Combino brand Beef Tortelloni, sold at its stores in Austria, after tests showed it contained horse meat.

Ms Aigner said Germany will step up testing and look for any meat not clearly noted on the label – not just horse.

She said: “I can’t say this is the end. We have to count on other cases being discovered.”

As well as implementing an EU action plan on testing meat products, some of Germany’s other plans include making sure consumers are more quickly informed as soon as a company has detected that its product may be mislabelled, and facilitating better information flow between state and federal agencies.

Germany also intends to rethink food labelling regulations so that consumers can be sure where products come from.

“We want to be as transparent as possible for the consumer,” Ms Aigner said.

Horse meat has turned up across Europe in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagne, as well as in in beef pasta sauce, on restaurant menus, in school lunches and in hospital meals.

Millions of products were pulled from store shelves in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway after the scandal broke, and supermarkets and food suppliers were told to test processed beef products for horse DNA.

European officials have said the scandal is the result of fraud, and possibly an international criminal conspiracy to pass off cheap horse meat as more expensive beef. And although officials say that eating horse meat is not generally dangerous, the scandal has upset people in places where such meat traditionally is not eaten.

France agreed yesterday partially to restore the health certification of a meat seller at the heart of the uproar.

In a decision before a meeting between French government officials and workers at the Spanghero company, French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said he would allow it to resume production of ground meat, sausages and some cooked goods after inspectors found nothing wrong there over the weekend.

However, frozen goods to be sold and processed elsewhere, which were the centre of questions over whether Spanghero officials deliberately passed off horse meat as beef, remain off limits for the company.

The French government has said the chain of fraudulent meat sales reaches across 28 firms in 13 countries.

At least some of the horse meat originated at abattoirs in Romania, and was sent through a Cyprus-registered trader to a warehouse in the Netherlands.

Spanghero bought the meat from the trader, then resold it to the French frozen food processor Comigel, and it was then marketed in other countries.

Yesterday, the Czech Republic said it was trying to confirm that nearly 15,000 packages of lasagne made by Comigel had horse meat. If confirmed, that would be the first time the scandal had spread to the country.

The BBC said that Swiss-based Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, had removed meals from shops in Italy and Spain.

Nestle said in a statement on its website that it enhanced testing of its products after reports first emerged in the UK about the fraudulent mislabelling of beef.

“We are now suspending deliveries of all our finished products produced using beef supplied by a German firm, HJ Schypke, a subcontractor of one of our suppliers, JBS Toledo

“Our tests have found traces of horse DNA in two products made from beef supplied by HJ Schypke. The levels found are above the one per cent threshold the UK’s Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence. We have informed the authorities accordingly.

“There is no food safety issue, but the mislabelling of products means they fail to meet the very high standards consumers expect from us.

“Therefore we are voluntarily removing two chilled pasta products, Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini from sale in Italy and Spain immediately, and we will replace them with product confirmed by DNA testing to be made from 100% beef.

“Lasagnes a la Bolognaise Gourmandes, a frozen meat product for catering businesses by Nestle Professional produced in France will also be withdrawn from sale and replaced with product made from 100% beef.

“We are also enhancing our existing comprehensive quality assurance programme by adding new tests on beef for horse DNA prior to production in Europe. Assuring the quality and safety of our products has always been a top priority for Nestle.

“We want to apologise to consumers and reassure them that the actions being taken to deal with this issue will result in higher standards and enhanced traceability.”

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