Irish beef trader confident he will be cleared by probe

The Irish beef trader named as the supplier of horsemeat by ABP Food Group has said he is confident of being fully exonerated when investigations are complete.

In a statement issued last night, McAdam Foods, of which Martin McAdams is the owner, said they had “no awareness or knowledge whatsoever of any possibility of there being equine content in meat products imported and supplied by McAdam to any other company”.

McAdam supplied meat processing company Rangeland Foods with raw material in January. Rangeland, which supplies Supermac’s, suspended its operations this week after finding up to 75% horse DNA in the product.

A second meat processing company Freeza Meats, in Newry, which stored product on behalf of McAdam Foods, was drawn into the horsemeat controversy when it emerged that two samples from the stored product were found to have 80% horse meat.

McAdam said Freeza had agreed to the storage “on a goodwill basis” after it emerged that blocks of frozen trimmings imported by McAdam from Poland were too big for Rangeland processors.

The contamination of the Freeza-stored product with horsemeat emerged following tests carried out this month. Last night, McAdam said the product had been supplied to them from Poland by a UK meat trading company.

This UK-based meat trader has since spoken to investigating authorities. McAdam said they had supplied all relevant information to the investigating environmental health officer, “who subsequently contacted the Polish meat supplier via the UK-based meat trader who supplied product to us. We relinquished our ownership of these goods and the UK meat trader agreed to take ownership and address relevant queries from the officer,” they said.