Horsemeat found in beef burgers manufactured for British supermarkets was imported from Poland, it emerged last night.
Tests have revealed that ‘raw material’ supplied to an Irish processing plant, which made burgers for Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland, contained as much as 20 percent horse DNA, the Irish Government said.
Around 10million beef burgers have been withdrawn from sale by supermarkets, and other smaller retailers in the UK, since the scandal, which centred around the Silvercrest factory, in County Monaghan, broke earlier this month.
Customers and food standards experts were left reeling after tests by the Foods Safety Authority of Ireland revealed burgers supplied to Tesco – Britain’s biggest supermarket chain - contained 29.1 percent horse DNA.
Burger King also stopped using Silvercrest’s products, although there was no horsemeat found in burgers sold by the fast food chain.
Simon Coveney, the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, said the latest tests were a ‘major breakthrough’ in their investigation to identify the source of the contaminated products.
He had initially suggested imported ingredients from Spain and the Netherlands were to blame, but yesterday revealed the ‘likely’ source was an unnamed factory in the eastern European country.
Mr Coveney said the raw material was made from ‘low value’ cuts of meat.
‘It’s fat cuts, trims, de-sinewed meats,’ Mr Coveney said. ‘There was equine DNA, which is horsemeat, in the product.
‘There is no evidence to suggest that anyone knowingly imported product that had horse DNA in it, but clearly that is what happened.’
The minister said the ABP Food Group, which owns the plant, had now agreed to source meat only from the UK and Ireland and to introduce regular DNA testing of meat at Silvercrest and its sister factory, Dalepak Hambleton, north Yorkshire.
However, the firm, which denied the contaminated meat had come from the company’s plant in Poznan, Poland, refused to say whether it was permitted to use the Polish ingredient in Tesco’s burgers.