On September 17th last, an environmental health officer inspected Freeza Meats in Newry, Co Down, and found a consignment of frozen boxed beef with Polish labels which the company said it was keeping in storage for a meat trader. Irregularities with the documentation were discovered. Some of the labels were found to be fraudulent. Other boxes had no labels. An investigation began.
Meanwhile, in November, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland began a survey to determine the authenticity of frozen beef burgers.
Shocked at the finding that the meat in a Tesco burger produced by Silvercrest Foods in Ballybay, Co Monaghan (part of the Larry Goodman meat processing empire), contained 29.1 per cent horse meat, the authority conducted further tests at home and in Germany.
On January 11th results confirmed the finding that a Silvercrest burger contained 29 per cent horse DNA, and showing trace amounts of horse meat in burgers made by Liffey Meats and Dalepak Hambleton in Britain (also part of the ABP Food Group of which Mr Goodman is a director and chairman).
Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Dunnes Stores and Iceland withdrew the named burgers from their shelves.
New test results released on January 17th showed nine more beef burgers produced in Silvercrest tested positive for horse DNA. Production was suspended.
Similar tests show no presence of horse meat in burgers made by Liffey Meats.
On January 23rd, Burger King said it had decided to replace all Silvercrest products in its UK and Ireland restaurants with products from other suppliers.
Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney then said tests revealed that a beef product from a Polish supplier was the most likely source of the horse meat.
Last Wednesday Tesco said it would no longer use Silvercrest as a supplier because it had used meat that did not come from its list of approved suppliers.
Silvercrest also lost contracts from British supermarket chain the Co-operative Group, Aldi and Asda. And Burger King said it would not be renewing its contract.
On Monday night, Rangeland Foods in Castleblayney suspended production following a test which found 75 per cent horse DNA in raw material labelled as Polish.
In the North, the Food Standards Agency took samples from the consignment in Freeza Meats and the results came back on Monday, showing 80 per cent horse DNA. The meat trader who was said to have owned the product had links with Silvercrest and Rangeland Foods.
