Professor Hugh Pennington was speaking about a survey by Scottish food authorities, which tested 129 samples of lamb curries from Indian restaurants and takeaways. The tests found that 26% of the ‘lamb’ curry samples contained beef or a mixture of meat, including sheep. Only 83 of the samples (64%) contained sheep meat alone.
Pennington told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “On the basis of the tests they have done, it must be pretty widespread because they’ve had no difficulty detecting it.
“It’s been going on for several years. It’s not that easy to detect, except by doing testing. My guess is that this was done by the restaurateurs, who knew full well what they were doing.”
‘Not easy to detect’
Pennington believed that the fraud had only come to light in recent years due to detection difficulties.
“They [food safety authorities] had to wait for a reasonable degree of suspicion to come out,” he said.
The Scottish Food Enforcement Liaison Committee (SFELC) released the results of its survey in a report titled ‘Accuracy of meat species labelling and use of food colours in Indian, and similar, catering premises’ in December 2012.
The report said: “Work by a number of Scottish environmental health departments has identified the substitution of lamb in dishes sold from Indian, and similar, catering premises.
“Investigation suggests that lamb is being replaced with other species of meat, sometimes with efforts made to disguise the meat to resemble lamb/mutton. The problem is exacerbated by a number of suppliers referring to ‘curry meat’, rather than any specific species.”
Food Standards Agency
A spokeswoman for the SFELC told Foodmanufacture.co.uk: “The Food Standards Agency is aware of the report and the underlying issue that is being actively pursued by environmental health services in Scotland.
“The report recommends that local authorities continue to pursue mis-described meat products in accordance with their enforcement procedures. This should ensure follow-up through investigation of the supply chain and appropriate action against businesses as necessary.”
The SFELC did not name the premises in question.
The spokeswoman said: “The names of businesses are held by the local authorities that undertook sampling and investigation. As is standard in all ongoing investigations, details are not released until the investigation is complete and any disclosure has followed due process.”
Pennington said: “They are probably working out whether to take legal action or not now.”
He called for further investigation into the problem.