The scandal that began in Ireland over horse meat being sold as more expensive beef continues to daunt food safety inspectors across Europe.
“Supermarkets in the U.K., France, Germany and Switzerland have withdrawn products including frozen lasagnas, burgers and spaghetti Bolognese meals from their shelves,” according to the Feb. 25, Wall Street Journal, with the Swedish furniture giant, IKEA, being the latest company pulled in to the scandal.
IKEA sells meatballs which are labeled as containing pork and beef, but according to the WSJ report, “pulled a batch of frozen meatballs tested horse-positive by Czech authorities and marketed as Köttbullar from all countries where they had been sold: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, France, the U.K., Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland,”
IKEA spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said that none of the products are harmful to eat. The issue is about proper labeling.
But the scandal has greater implications than just mislabeling.
Samples of the affected products have been collected to determine how much horse meat they contain, and “if the figure is less than 1%, the products would typically be considered to have been contaminated during the handling process rather than mixed with horse meat.”
Intentional mixing or accidental contamination?
Either way, Europe has a runaway horse scandal and somebody better grab the reins.
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