Today Monday Czech authorities announced that they had found horse meat in IKEA meatballs sold at the furniture giant stores and in their restaurants. The discovery was done though random DNA testing and prompted a huge recall in the Czech Republic. The meatballs are produced in Sweden by IKEA and exported around the world to their restaurants and also where they are sold frozen in bags to consumers. The labeling states that the meatballs contain beef and pork but fails to label horse meat.
This comes after a month of controversy in Europe where random meat testing started earlier this year as part of the European Union’s attempt at food control and labeling. There has been in the past month the discovery of horse meat in hamburgers and meat lasagna but this is the first for Swedish meatballs.
This is a product that is exported by IKEA all over the world including the US, the question now is will American authorities test the meatballs that are here in the American market? It was only last year that American consumers discovered that some beef products contained pink slime, is horse meat the next huge problem that will face American consumers?
IKEA has not yet made a public statement in regards to the mislabeling nor have they disclosed whether the same meatballs were exported to other countries.
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