Source of horse in burgers may never be known

The origin of the horsemeat found in burgers produced in the Silvercrest plant may never be known, it has emerged.

Poland’s veterinary authority found no signs of horsemeat in samples from five slaughterhouses that were sending beef to Ireland and will know the results from the sixth on Monday, state news agency PAP reported yesterday.

However, an inspection carried out by EU authorities into the Polish horsemeat industry last year found that forms filled in to keep track of the identity of the animals in the abattoirs were incomplete, missing, or inaccurate in many cases.

“The EU provisions in respect of food chain information were rarely implemented satisfactorily, as such information was either incomplete, erroneous or absent,” the report read.

There were problems at some of the horse markets visited with keeping track of the details of the animals purchased, while at the slaughterhouses there were problems with the counting of the animals — and the problems in one were significant, the report read.

They also raised concerns about one laboratory’s tests for the roundworm trichinella — mainly found in pork and horsemeat — which can cause severe food poisoning when the meat is not properly cooked.

While the facilities to test for the worm in meat were present in two laboratories the inspectors visited, the testing procedure used in one lab was not the approved one.

However, the traceability systems in the deboning and processing plants were up to scratch, with marking, identification and labelling of horsemeat in accordance with EU laws.

There have been claims that the meat from Poland came in frozen batches labelled as “beef” but was, in fact, a mixture of beef and horse.

Polish authorities said they were still investigating the Irish claims that the horsemeat used by the Co Monaghan plant came from their country and was labelled as “beef”. They hope to have results next week.

The country is the second largest horsemeat slaughter and processing country in the EU after Italy. Polandexported horsemeat valued at more than €34.6m to the rest of the EU in 2010, 99% of it to Italy.

Ireland too has become an exporter of horse flesh since the economic crisis hit. At the height of the boom we had the highest ratio of horses to people, but with the drop in demand for ponies and people having less income, Irish people began to sell them off in big numbers.

While the Irish Horse Welfare Trust says hundreds of horses leave Ireland to be transported to slaughter houses in Europe, some reports say several thousand are being slaughtered and processed by Irish plants.

Italy is the biggest consumer of horsemeat followed by France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, while the biggest producers are Italy, Poland, France, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Abattoirs have to be approved for slaughtering horses. Cutting plants are approved for any red meat — which can include horse — while a cold store can store any type of food, the European Commission said.

About 200,000 horses are slaughtered annually for their meat in the EU according to the European Commission, while additional horsemeat is imported from Latin and South America.