An Athens prosecutor ordered investigation on whether horsemeat was illegally imported from neighboring Bulgaria and sold as ‘beef’. While imports of horsemeat are not illegal in Greece, it is certainly illegal to sell them with false declaration and thus misleading consumers and committing fraud.
According to daily Eleftherotypia, the Greek Food Control Authority (EFET), two companies are reportedly to have imported from Bulgaria unknown amounts of horsemeat in the form of frozen mincemeat.
EFET located these two companies in Athens and Thessaloniki to have their headquarters in a …field and in a building that had no connection with business or enterprises whatsoever.
Eleftherotypia refers to 740 tons of imported horsemeat, while the Eurostat claims the Greeks have consumed 74,300 kilograms of horsemeat. Knowingly or not, it’s not clear.
Meanwhile, the State General Chemistry Laboratory of the country tests meat examples that were sized in a storage in Athens. The results are expected tomorrow Wednesday.
Horsemeat reached Greece also from Romania
According to website Zougla.gr, horsemeat was found also in the storage of a Greek businessman in Romania. The businessman told Romanian and German media, that he was cheated by the Romanian supplier ANTISALDE. Tons of horsemeat were declared as ‘beef’ and reached the tables of consumers across Europe.
With a profit margin of 3.1 € extra per kilo on horsemeat, and knowing that profit driven economy is by the nature of things infected with a serious dose of greed, I find all these “we got done” statements from all corners of the EU rather diffucult to accept. 740 tonnes of horsemeat in Greece alone makes an nice extra, and of course undeclared, 3 million profit.
It is however not just meat, and not just in the EU that this problem of “wrong labeling” happens.
Research in the USA shows that 33% of all fish products are wrongly labeled. In Boston, home of the US Cod fishing industry, 50% of cod products were labeled wrong. In Seatlle, home of the salmon industry, 20% of all salmon products were labeled wrong.
Tilefish and king mackerel are regularly labeled as Red Snapper and Halibut. Tilefish and king mackerel are known to store damgerous levels of heavy metals, mainly mercury, in their systems.
the bigges worry however is that almost 85% of white tuna samples proved to be escador, a fish that is know to cause long term damage to the digestive systems of many people, even when eaten in minute doses…
It’s a fishy business, one could say a dodgy horstrade, this mass food production business…
fishy business? rather horsey one, I ‘d dare say
when will people realise that cheap food is cheap food
labeling means NOTHING that has been proved time and time again
unless you know the origin of the food you know nothing
the WORLD situation with regard to the quality of what wee put into our bodies is highly suspect
i pity the working class housewife who is trying to feed her family on an ever decreasing budget and having to TRUST these unscruples food sources exploiting these families for profit
greed? sounds familar all over the world!!
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