Former shadow environment secretary Creagh made the claims in Radio 4’s File on 4 programme, which aired last night (January 29). She cited figures indicating 9,011 horses were slaughtered in Britain in 2011 and 9,400 in 2012.
However, this number halved in 2013 to 4,505, after the horsemeat scandal broke, she said. She argued this suggested that much of the meat from the slaughtered horses had previously been entering the food chain.
The Radio 4 programme also highlighted the massive difficulties faced by port health inspectors, the first line of defence against problem non-EU shipments entering the UK, with limited staffing and resources.
“I know how much we sample, but I also know how much we don’t sample and there’s a big gap,” Southampton port health inspection team leader Sandra Westacott told presenter Gerry Northam. “Are all the things that we don’t have to sample safe? I couldn’t tell you.”
Major salmonella outbreak
It referred to one instance a year ago when what could have turned into a major salmonella outbreak was prevented by food safety sampling of chicken meat at a Northern Ireland sandwich manufacturer.
The infected poultry meat in question came from an EU-approved supplier in China and was supported by all relevant documentation, including a certificate asserting it had tested negative for salmonella, the programme claimed.
It also featured professor Chris Elliott, who is reviewing the integrity and assurance of food supply networks after the horsemeat scandal, calling for a more coordinated, cross-border approach to tracking food fraudsters.
Crack down on fraudsters
He pointed to Denmark as a country that provided a model for policing food fraud. In his interim report, published last year, Elliott recommended setting up a UK Food Crime Unit to crack down on fraudsters, because conventional police lacked the specialisms needed to deal with them.
A new European Commission Food Fraud Network has recently been set up and has uncovered significant levels of potentially fraudulent activity already.
Carmen Garau, newly appointed head of the network, told Northam: “There are very many cases. We do have at least 40 strands of investigation for the substitution of horsemeat to beef.”