2013 horse meat contamination scandal

The 2013 horse meat scandal was a scandal in Europe in which foods advertised as containing beef were found to contain undeclared or improperly declared horse meat – as much as 100% of the meat content in some cases. A smaller number of products also contained other undeclared meats, such as pork. The issue came to light on 15 January 2013, when it was reported that horse DNA had been discovered in frozen beefburgers sold in several Irish and British supermarkets.

The analysis stated that 23 out of 27 samples of beef burgers also contained pig DNA; pork is a taboo food in the Muslim and Jewish communities.

While the presence of undeclared meat was not a health issue, the scandal revealed a major breakdown in the traceability of the food supply chain, and the risk that harmful ingredients could have been included as well. Sports horses, for example, could have entered the food supply chain, and with them the veterinary drug phenylbutazone which is banned in food animals. The scandal has since spread to 13 other European countries, and European authorities have decided to find an EU-wide solution. They initiated meat testing of about 4,000 horse meat samples for the veterinary drug.

Investigations by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) resulted in Ireland being the first EU state to report the presence of horse meat in beef and make the results public. The first positive test for equine DNA was on 10 December 2012. It carried out additional tests on 18 and 21 December. The FSAI then sent samples to the Eurofins laboratory in Germany. Professor Alan Reilly of the FSAI testified to the Oireachtas on 5 February 2013 that the results indicated the presence of equine DNA, but not the amount. The IdentiGen Laboratory and the Eurofins Laboratory were asked to determine the amount of horse meat in the samples. On 21 December 2012, the FSAI requested that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in Ireland obtain further samples. These were sent to the Identigen laboratory on 4 January 2013.

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