Chlorinated Chickens are OK

[meridian]

so you mean the French won't buy British lamb????

They're our largest export market.

[WTFH]

A bit of bleach is ok, at least you know it's actually Chicken ... Unlike your EU burger that will be running the 16:00 at Leicester ...

Nothing wrong with horse meat as long as it is labelled as such. In most European countries it is correctly labelled and served as horse meat.
It is only in the UK that the scandal occurred where the supermarkets tried to buy the cheapest product possible and labelled it as beef without checking what they were buying.

[Bean]

Nothing wrong with horse meat as long as it is labelled as such.

Completely agree

In most European countries it is correctly labelled and served as horse meat.

According to wiki, it was up to 13 EU countries the 'scandal' affected, so technically correct but it means you're incorrect when you say;

It is only in the UK that the scandal occurred

Nope, it happened in Ireland and 12 other EU countries, not just the UK (and the UK was supplied by a French company) - see first Q from link below;
https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/off..._meat/qanda_en and Wikipedia if you want..

where the supermarkets tried to buy the cheapest product possible and labelled it as beef without checking what they were buying.

Who, according to you, is the onus on to check that meat, labelled as 'X' is 'X' - supermarkets?

So what are the regulators/food inspectors for, if not to stop this exact thing?

[BR14]

As i recall, one of the companies at the centre of the scandal was called DRAAP products.
Run by a dutchman.
PAARD is dutch for horse

[WTFH]

Who, according to you, is the onus on to check that meat, labelled as 'X' is 'X' - supermarkets?

So what are the regulators/food inspectors for, if not to stop this exact thing?

If your order is for "meat" without specifying the animal, then you get what you ordered. No issue with the regulators, your attempt to blame the EU is false.
If your order was for quality beef, then you should be getting what you ordered. The regulators should be checking.

So, the first question would be: what was actually ordered?
Secondly: what checks were done to ensure the product matched the requirement?
Thirdly: who found the problem? Well, that one is easy to answer - the EU regulators found it. They found it, they started the process to stop it.

And it's very interesting if you read the whole page you referred to, you'll see that the EU has acted on this.

[Bean]

If your order is for "meat" without specifying the animal, then you get what you ordered. No issue with the regulators, your attempt to blame the EU is false.
If your order was for quality beef, then you should be getting what you ordered. The regulators should be checking.

Glad you agree it IS in fact the regulators job - so not sure why you were trying to shift blame to the supermarkets earlier?

So, the first question would be: what was actually ordered?

BEEF

Secondly: what checks were done to ensure the product matched the requirement?

Not many, obviously - until those Irish regulators found the horse

Thirdly: who found the problem? Well, that one is easy to answer - the EU regulators found it. They found it, they started the process to stop it.

And it's very interesting if you read the whole page you referred to, you'll see that the EU has acted on this.

Yes, NOW - but they should already have been shouldn't they?



The text of the frst Q, from the link I previously gave you is;
"The problem was first picked up by Irish food inspectors who announced in mid-January 2013 that they had found horse meat in frozen beef burgers. Subsequently, the UK informed the Commission on 8 February 2013 that a UK company (Findus UK) had been selling beef lasagne supplied by a French company (Comigel-Tavola Luxembourg) which tests showed contained between 80-100% horse meat."


Do you notice the word Beef in there somewhere?
Did you read the link I provided, or just find it difficult to understand it?


I did read more than just that 1st Q (apparently you didn't ) - there processes were found wanting:
"Several lessons have been drawn from the horse meat fraud. The most important is probably that large scale, cross-border fraudulent schemes that take advantage of the weaknesses of an increasingly globalised food supply can impact hugely on consumers and operators, on thus on the economy. Constant vigilance from operators and competent authorities towards economically motivated fraud, that can be perpetrated at any step of the food supply chain is needed."

The EU has admitted, clear as day - that at the time of the scandal, they were not a competent authority

[WTFH]

The text of the frst Q, from the link I previously gave you is;
"The problem was first picked up by Irish food inspectors who announced in mid-January 2013 that they had found horse meat in frozen beef burgers. Subsequently, the UK informed the Commission on 8 February 2013 that a UK company (Findus UK) had been selling beef lasagne supplied by a French company (Comigel-Tavola Luxembourg) which tests showed contained between 80-100% horse meat."


Do you notice the word Beef in there somewhere?
Did you read the link I provided, or just find it difficult to understand it?

Yes, I noticed the word beef. Did you?
Findus were selling lasagne they had labelled "beef"
That doesn't say that Findus ordered beef, does it?
That says that Findus sold it as beef.

[Bean]

Yes, I noticed the word beef. Did you?
Findus were selling lasagne they had labelled "beef"
That doesn't say that Findus ordered beef, does it?
That says that Findus sold it as beef.

I'm sure you're correct and Findus ordered 'Meat' for their BEEF lasagne


From wiki:
"On 14 February 2013, the French government stated that French meat processing company À la Table de Spanghero knowingly sold horse meat labelled as beef, and that their licence was suspended while an inquiry continues.[31] Spanghero imported meat from Romania and sold it on to another French company, Comigel, which made frozen ready meals at its factory in Luxembourg. French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoît Hamon said the meat had left Romania clearly and correctly labelled as horse and that it was afterwards that it was relabelled as beef by Spanghero.[31] The investigation also said some blame may rest with Comigel, claiming the staff there should have noticed anomalies in the paperwork, and realised from the smell and look of the meat once it was defrosted that it was not beef.[31]

Comigel[edit]

On 7 February 2013, Findus announced that in a sample of 18 beef lasagne products that it tested, 11 contained between 60% and 100% horse meat.[32] It was also revealed that some of the products sold had minced meat declared as beef that was 60–100% horse meat.[33] The source of the horse meat was third party supplier Comigel, a French-headquartered frozen ready meal producer, from its subsidiary Tavola factory in Capellen, Luxembourg. According to the FSA the company had been alerted by a third-party French supplier on 4 February 2013, and tested its beef lasagne products finding over 50% of the tested products contained horse meat. According to reports both Findus UK and the French supplier withdrew all products related to the third party supplier. The reason for the adulteration was initially stated as "highly likely" criminal activity.[34]

The president of Comigel, Erick Lehagre, told Agence France-Presse that the adulterated meat supplier was Spanghero, a firm owned by Lur Berri and founded in 1970 by Claude and Laurent Spanghero, two former France international rugby players.[35] He said that Spanghero had told him that the meat was not from France, but came from a producer in Romania.[36] On 11 February 2013 France's Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon warned it "will not hesitate" to take legal action if there is evidence companies had knowingly duped consumers. Hamon said an initial investigation by French safety authorities had found a French company Poujol (Spanghero's holding company) bought frozen meat from a Cypriot trader. That trader had bought it from Dutch food supplier Draap (the Dutch word for horse, Paard spelled backwards), owned by Jan Fasen, who was previously convicted for horse meat fraud in 2007.[37] Draap, in turn, bought it from two Romanian slaughterhouses.[37] Poujol then supplied a factory in Luxembourg, owned by Comigel, which then supplied Findus and the British supermarkets. The Romanian government has stated that there are no contracts between the Romanian abattoirs and any French, Cypriot or Dutch meat processors.[38]

On 8 February 2013, Findus announced that it would no longer accept meat from Comigel, and stopped further deliveries of the product in question. On the same day, Findus UK published a public apology on its website, also announcing that, following DNA testing, three of its products were found to contain horse tissue. These are the 320, 350 and 500 gram packages of Findus Beef Lasagne; the company offered a refund for products purchased.[39] Findus Sverige AB also announced a recall of its 375 gram packs of ready-made single-portion lasagne (code 63957), and published a contact number for customers who had already purchased the products.[40] On 8 February 2013 supermarket chain Aldi announced that it would withdraw from sale Today's Special Frozen Beef Lasagne and Today's Special Frozen Spaghetti Bolognese, supplied by Comigel, after tests found the meat content to be between 30 and 100% horse."

Oh wait, you're not correct

Seriously, how hard is it to read the links provided?
(I've put bold to lead you through the story/timeline)

Have you landed on your head recently to attribute the decline in your reading comprehension?

Take care on slippery or icy surfaces WTFH

[meridian]

"Several lessons have been drawn from the horse meat fraud. The most important is probably that large scale, cross-border fraudulent schemes that take advantage of the weaknesses of an increasingly globalised food supply can impact hugely on consumers and operators, on thus on the economy. Constant vigilance from operators and competent authorities towards economically motivated fraud, that can be perpetrated at any step of the food supply chain is needed."

The EU has admitted, clear as day - that at the time of the scandal, they were not a competent authority

I wasn't aware that the EU provided a centralised inspection scheme, and that "EU" regulators showed up to QM and inspect foodstuffs. Do you have a link that shows anyone other than British food regulators being responsible for checking food imports into Britain?

[WTFH]

I wasn't aware that the EU provided a centralised inspection scheme, and that "EU" regulators showed up to QM and inspect foodstuffs. Do you have a link that shows anyone other than British food regulators being responsible for checking food imports into Britain?

But it's the EU's fault.
It has to be.
Everything is the EU's fault, haven't you read the memo?