Horse source hard to uncover

Garda investigators have a major task on their hands to establish when and where Polish beef was fraudulently replaced with horsemeat.

Experts said this could have happened anywhere between Poland and Ireland, and that various people were involved in either processing or supplying it.

A team from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation is trying to establish who in this country had access to the meat and if they engaged in the fraud.

The team is examining documentation gathered from the two plants affected in the Republic and the supplier who imported the consignments from Poland.

The supplier, McAdam Foods Services, based in Monaghan, also stored some of the product in Freeza Meats in Newry, Co Down.

Martin McAdam, whose firm owned the meat, yesterday said he unwittingly brought the contaminated consignment into the country. He said he purchased the frozen blocks from two plants in Poland through another broker in August.

He said he never knowingly bought or imported anything other than beef.

Mr McAdam said he was working with the Food Standards Agency Ireland and the Department of Agriculture and has provided documentation to them.

The Garda team will try to pinpoint the movement of the meat from the Polish plants to McAdam Foods. This will determine if other meat traders were involved as intermediaries.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland said it was still awaiting a formal response from Polish authorities to determine if the horse meat originated from plants there.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney and FSAI boss Alan Reilly said someone, somewhere, engaged in fraud by replacing the beef trimmings with horsemeat.

Gerry McCurdy of the Food Standards Agency Northern Ireland said there were “irregularities” in the documents attached to the consignment in cold storage in Freeza. He said many labels were genuine, but alleged “some of the labels were fraudulent” and some boxes had “no labels at all”.

Freeza Meats issued a statement stressing it had no involvement with the batch, other than agreeing to store it for McAdam Foods.

BUSINESSES CLOSED

MCADAMS

McAdams Food Services is based at Newbliss, Co Monaghan. It has described itself as a broker for imported meat, and brought in the controversial consignment in August.

The company said it was working with gardaí and the Department of Agriculture to trace the origins of its product.

In a statement to RTÉ, it said it had unwittingly brought the horse product from two suppliers in Poland.

SILVERCREST

The plant is owned by Larry Goodman’s ABP Group and suspended production when the FSAI tests first discovered high levels of horse DNA in its product.

Silvercrest has since lost valuable contracts with Tesco, Burger King, and Aldi.

ABP said it was supplied with 170 tonnes of product from McAdams last year, and it claims this was the source of the horse product.

RANGELAND

The family-owned business employs 80 people and supplies the Supermac’s chain with burgers.

It said it bought rogue product from McAdams in early January but the meat did not go into production.

When it suspected problems with the batch it contacted the Department and instigated the DNA samples that showed up 75% horse DNA. “This consignment was received in early January and did not go into production,” it said.

FREEZA MEATS

The Newry-based company said none of the meat that was detained on its premises was used in production.

It said it was offered the product in Aug 2012 but did not buy it, and instead agreed to have it stored on a separate part of the site.

“This raw material was not purchased by Freeza Meats and never reached the food chain through this company.

“There have been no traces of equine DNA in any samples taken from Freeza Meats products,” it said.