McIntosh told FoodManufacture.co.uk it was “deeply worrying” that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had confirmed a product containing horse DNA had been withdrawn from a Home Bargains discount store in Grantham, Lincolnshire.
“The latest contamination, albeit small and just above the trace limit, is deeply worrying and confirms the suspicions of the committee that we do not know at which point this food is entering the supply chain,” she said.
She said confusion over the roles of the FSA, other government agencies and departments had hampered responses to January’s discovery of significant amounts of unlabelled horsemeat in beef products.
She claimed the FSA was slow to begin testing for horsemeat in products after discovering in November 2012 the Food Safety Authority of Ireland had developed a methodology for it.
She argued it must have suspected horsemeat adulteration was an issue to develop tests. She therefore questioned why the FSA didn’t realise that and immediately implement the same testing.
Lack of food analysts
And a lack of food analysts would hold up testing and weaken defences against further food contamination incidents, she said.
These concerns were voiced in an EFRA committee report published in July, plus independent reviews into the issue from Pat Troop, earlier this year, and the National Audit Office, in October.
A government response to the EFRA report, published earlier this month, played the concerns down and McIntosh said: “I don’t detect from the Secretary of State [for the Environment, Owen Paterson] and the Department [for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] any urgency in putting the FSA in good order.”
She pressed City of London Police, which is leading UK investigations into the horsemeat fraud, to speed up investigations after announcing two arrests in August.
A source close to City of London Police said: “The arrests were at the beginning of the summer. It obviously does take some time to bring things through to conviction.”
Home Bargains owner TJ Morris withdrew one batch of its 320g canned Food Hall Sliced Beef in Gravy line after one product tested above the DNA threshold required for a recall.
It stressed the batch was removed from sale immediately when the test results surfaced and the same line had shown no further evidence of similar contamination.
‘Disappointed’
The retailer said it was “disappointed” with the findings. “We work closely with our suppliers to ensure that our quality control is of the highest standard and extremely thorough. We are already liaising with this supplier to ensure that an even more robust process is in place moving forward.”
Lincolnshire County Council trading standards officers secured the TJ Morris samples for testing in September as part of continued FSA national sampling following the horsemeat scandal.
“The canned beef was manufactured in Romania in January 2013 and supplied to Home Bargains (TJ Morris) and Quality Save stores in the UK,” said the council in a statement. “It was also tested for the presence of the drug phenylbutazone, known as ‘bute’, but was not found to contain any.”
Tests earlier this year had identified bute in some samples of beef products shown to contain horsemeat, but not at unsafe levels.
“We do not believe this positive result is evidence of ongoing adulteration, as the product dates from the beginning of this year,” said an FSA spokesman. “Previous batches of this product had been tested earlier in the year and no problems were found.
“However, the ongoing testing work conducted by local authorities … demonstrates that the authorities have remained vigilant and continue to ensure consumers are not misled.”