Price pressures forced me to source meat products outside Ireland: McAdams Foods owner

The owner of McAdams Foods, the Monaghan company at the centre of the horsemeat controversy, has said he sourced products from Poland after clients requested lower-cost material.

However, Martin McAdams insisted he did not know his company's products could have had horsemeat in them, and would not have invested in the products if he did.

Speaking on Shannonside Northern Sound this morning, Martin McAdam said he had no inkling that he could be involved in the controversy.

"Why would I jeopardise €75,000 that I would pay before I'd even lift the load of beef in Poland? That's a huge amount of money to risk," he said.

"If I had an inkling that they were putting in even a little bit of horsemeat -or anything at all - I would have pulled out straight away and never dealt with them again."

The company was identified last night as the source of the contaminated meat products and it is reported that a number of items including laptops and other electronic material have been seized from the home of Mr McAdam.

Speaking exclusively to Shannonside Northern Sound, Martin McAdam said the companies he supplies are not required to buy Irish "because they also have contracts to export burgers outside Ireland".

He said he had held a number of meetings with Rangeland and Silvercrest.

"They are looking for competitively priced cuts. I did source them at some stage in Ireland, but due to price pressures, I was informed to source cuts elsewhere, so I went to the European Union," he said.

"I not only went to Poland - I brought in products from Germany, Holland and Belgium."