Irish horse meat hamburger manufacturer denies Poland plant source

photo - sxc.hu

“As with all other parts of the Group this plant does not process any horse meat," says the statement, referring to ABP's factory in Pniewy near Poznań, after Irish agriculture minister, Simon Coveney, said on Saturday that they had found the source of the contaminated meat.

"Now we can be very credible as to where this problem came from," Minister Coveney told the RTE broadcaster. "My understanding is that the company involved takes beef product from about five different slaughtering facilities in Poland."

On 15 January, horse meat DNA was found in frozen beef burgers at several Irish and British supermarkets, including Tesco, Asda, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland found Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers contained 29 percent horse DNA, for example, and the discovery led to supermarkets clearing their shelves of 10 million units of the product and Burger King cancelling their contract with the suppliers.

At the weekend, the Irish government announced a “major breakthrough” into the probe into how the horse meat was added to beef burgers at the Silvercrest facility, owned by ABP.

In a statement the Agricultural Ministry in Dublin said that “raw material from Poland is the source of equine DNA content in certain beef burgers."

ABP says, however, that its Polish plant, an EU-accredited supplier of meat products, does not use horse meat in its manufacture process.

As in the UK and Ireland, horse meat is not a product usually eaten in Poland, as opposed to France or Switzerland where it is considered a delicacy. (pg)