Supermarket chain Carrefour/Marinopoulos removed two products from its deep fridges on suspicion they contain horse meat. The products “Lasagna Bolognese” Carefour, 1kilo and “Cannelloni Bolognese” Carrefour, 600 gr have been manufacturing internationally on behalf of Carrefour by French Comigel.
” French food firm Comigel manufactures the Findus lasagnes found to contain up to 100% horsemeat. The company specialises in frozen ready meals, a third of which are exported.
Comigel, based in the north-eastern town of Metz, supplies tens of thousands of tonnes of frozen meals to about 15 countries.” (guardian)
Carrefour/marinopoulos withdrew the two products after recommendation of Greek Food Control authority, EFET.
Even though horse meat eating a taboo in many countries, consuming horse meat is not dangerous for public health. However, as it is not known whether the illegal traded horse meat has undergone health controls and whether it contains antibiotika and painkillers suitable for horses but not for humans.
Healthy or unhealthy, the use of horse meat in products sold to contain beef-meat is at least misleading consumers.
Carrefour lasagne and cannelloni are currently undergoing DNA tests. The total amount of these products distributed in Greece is yet to be revealed. EFET is reassuring.
picture via EFET
you can thank the health department in ireland
we discovered this and then when other countries started testing they found this was going on all over europe
do not buy processed meat products
this meat filling from romania travelled to somewhere else in europe and then back to france where it went into the processed meat products
Not necessarily. There is ample evidence of a serious horse smuggling racket from Ireland to the UK, and illegal slaughtering of horses in the UK. No papers, no questions asked. And serious evidence of links between these gangs and the Irish (Limerick) drug gangs.
What the world can thank Ireland for is a massive over-production of beef and dairy, resulting in warehouses full of “surplus” stock kept in cold storage to artificially keep the prices high, while people throughout Europe, ikncluding Ireland itself, and elsewhere go hungry.
As for the processed stuff, fully agreed. Should never be purchased for any reason.
Meanwhile the Romanians declare that their abatoirs did absolutely nothing wrong, everything done above board and within the rules.
We can thank the Irish for overproduction of beed resulting in higher prices and contamination of meat products with horse meat? Are you from Fox News?
Personally, I thank the Irish for the delicious and cheap cheese they ship to my local grocer.
Let me tell you a little story about my other country. There are 3 times as many cows in Ireland than there are people. Ireland also houses acres upon acres of cold storage, packed to gills with surplus beef. The producers of all this surplus are subsidized in their income through the EU CAP, because they get paid peanuts for their produce and can’t live from these “earnings”. On the other hand, millions of people throughout the EU cannot afford to buy the meat in the supermarkets or corner shops to eat it. But those same millions are being fleeced by their respective governments for taxes which, amongst other things, pay for the cold stores and the subsidies to the farmers, so that meat prices can be kept high…
Now, have a close look at what is happening. The producers of meat products are very obviously cheating by using “unregulated” horse meat instead of “regulated” (= cheaply extorted) beef from the farmers. These producers not only pay the farmer peanuts, they are now found to be engaged in denying that farmer those peanuts in the name of more profit. Some years ago the largest Irish beef processors were caught red handed fiddling the subsidy-system. Greed knows no morals. And the finger pointing has started. Nothing will happen about this, because it’s “big business” and that means “carte blanche” for the money-men.
As for your Irish cheese… As it happens, I have first hand knowledge of the cheese market in Ireland. Most cheese is imported from Holland, by a company in county Cork. It gets repackaged, re-branded with fancy Irish sounding names, and magically we have “Irish” cheese on the shelves in supermarkets and corner shops. I know because I used to deliver the stuff around the country. Of course there are small, local producers. But if they are not squeezed out of business by through taxes and sheer lack of support, they end up giving up because they simply can’t compete.
If you really want to know a little about what you think is food, inform yourself. Fox News wont do that for you. Go and have a read of Felicity Lawrence’s “What’s not on the Label” and while you’re at it, have a good gander at “E for Additives”, telling you all about the chemicals processed food manufacturers are “allowed” to use. Another really good (and handy) little book on that subject is “What’s in my Trolley”. this also tells you what the stuff actually does to you, instead of just making the “food” look good and last longer.
I hate to bring you the news. “Cheap” it’s not, “Irish” it’s most likely not, and hell, it probably ain’t cheese either…
have you watched the uk news??
what would have happened if this had not been picked up in ireland??
food security is probably the biggest problem facing consumers now
i come back to the original point
the responsibility rests with the consumer but must be policed by the state
as you probably know that apart from a few small producers the GALTEE brand bacon comes from out of the state
i grow my own fruit and veg and compost my waste food and have installed a few solar panels
the whole labelling system needs to be sorted so as to enable the consumer to make an informed choice as to the origin of the production the drive for ‘cheap’ food between the food retailers is not helping remember maggies drive for cheap food and a certain BSE i would be interested in your opinion on the labelling issue or are you just a ‘keyboard warrior!!
This keyboard warrior has raised 13 children on home grown food, not supermarket junk. I still grow all my own stuff, only eat meat if the dog manages to catch a rabbit or duck etc (don’t use guns), I compost my waste, don’t have or use a car but public transport, and many other things that keep life simple, interesting and eliminate the need to take part in the ever faster rat race in order to remain standing still.
I worked in the food industry for a long time, did everything from deliving to stock control to label design and branding, and health and safety. Yes it is a mess, but only because it is designed to be a mess. Small producers are strangled with regulation, mainly EU, while the large producers have almost unlimited access to “intervention” product, which they can buy at vastly reduced prices, in turn undercutting the small guy trying to make a living. On your points below, the “ample” evidence was presented in your own Dail by amongst others those responsible for agriculture in Ireland. Amongst the evidence produced is also the evidence from the UK house of commons that a lot of this horse meat is contaminated with “bute”, a carcenogenic drug banned from use on humans or animals intended for the human food chain. Minister Coveney has gone to great lenghts to point the finger elsewhere, but even Pat the Plank found it necessary to doubt him, which says a lot. (Sorry to those not familiar with Irish radio etc. Pat the Plank is a humour-less radio presenter, not exactly knows for his controvercial stances or probing questioning of authority figures). If you are going to rely on the BBC for unbiased news, then may the Gods help you. Being Irish, you should know a lot better…
Finally, the working class mother is no less a victim from clever, I call it criminal marleting, than anybody else. Product placement, advertising, so called promotions, they are all designed to make the impossible look normal and the unpallatable edible. A little bit of know-how, a small balcony and some effort will allow that working class mother to feed herself and her children far cheaper than any supermarket promotion ever will, and far healthier.
As long as you, and that working class mother, refuse to take the cost of healthcare caused by bad diet into account and refuse to see it as cost of bad “feeding habits”, the the confusing labels, immoral adverstising and zero nutrition stomach fillers sold as food will remain on the shelves and keep causing havoc. And horses will be sold as cows, dead or alive…
ah a reaction at last!! i’m 73 years of age [4 children] i in heraklion 1 in germany and 2 in ireland
i was involved in the formation of the irish cheesemakers association and retired in 2005
i have experienced the problems of the small producers here in ireland they in spite of this have thrived and we have a second generation of cheesemakers producing
they achieved this through hard work and dedication to their art
i met some of the finest people i have had the good fortune to be associated wirh in my working life
these people have have survived and raised families on the back of their hard work and honesty i go back to my first point what would have happened if somebody had not reported their findings about the use of horsemeat in ireland bu the way you must have some balcony to enable you to feed your family
The real question is not “what would have happened if…”, the real question is “why didn’t it happen earlier?” If you or I tried a stunt like this, we would be hauled into court so fast our feet wouldn’t touch the ground. The Findus, SilverCrests and other multinationals of this world simply point the finger elsewhere, and feel very peeved if somebody gives them a slap on the wrist. But that is about as far as it goes. There are also a considerable amount of voices in Ireland who will hold that this only came about as the result of an argument between suppliers. The company where the initial horseef burger was found (SuperMacs) just so happens to be the largest customer of SilverCrests which is owned by the notorious L.Goodman. There are still a lot of people who have more than one axe to grind with this indiviudal, none in the least the workers in Rathkeale and Tralee.
You are a little older than I, bought your TV a lot earlier:) and no, I don’t live in Ireland any longer, and glad not to. When I did live there, with the full tribe, we didn’t have a balcony, we had 4 acres of land and 3 poly tunnels. I now have a reduced first generation tribe, but they made up for it with their own off spring, and even these have managed to produce a few sons and daughters, so still feeding a small army. Less acres, more produce. You can live and learn, with or without balcony…
As for the small producers, would you like to simply put their debts to banks, credit unions, HP companies, revenue etc. against their earnings, and see how many more years they will need to slave before they can truely say, I own by business? Every time there is light at the end of the tunnel, some new regulation or EU directive will make sure its actually an oncoming train. The lucky ones are the ones who managed to sell out to the Kerry Groups and Glanbia’s of this world. The others are, unfortunately, simply p…..g against the wind.
when working class mothers are trying to feed their children they have little alternative if these foods are on sale for human consumption
the eu produced the quotas on beef and dairy to correct that inbalance that they also helped to correct
these quotos are being reviewed at the moment
with regard to the horsemeat scandal watch the uk news and bring yourself up to date!!
where is the AMPLE evidence?? you are obviously an expert in all food and associated matters i bow to your superior knowledge
Since when into lasagne and cannelloni belong cows? Put humans inside, small ones for the cannelloni and grown ups for the Lasagne. If you want that stuff bio then take only humans elder than 32 – mother nature doesn’t need them any more.
i now hear that the poles and the bulgarians have reconsidered joining the EURO lucky things!!
joining the EUr-orse
the eu health commissioner has just made a statenent saying that the matter of the horsemeat issue was a labelling matter and posed no risk to human health BUTE?????
the new EU health commissioner has no idea about anything, I ‘m afraid. did you see his recent statement on why only Greeks stop smoking? because it affects productivity, he said and didn’t mention any health risks.