The
testing is not based on any new intelligence about food fraud but has been
requested as part of the on-going work to ensure the problems discovered last
year do not reoccur.
Since last year, local authorities in the UK have been
testing beef products for horse meat as part of their routine sampling
programmes. The UK food industry has also been testing beef products and
submitting quarterly results to the FSA. The new round of European testing is
in addition to both of these strands of on-going work.
All
member states have been asked to submit test results. The UK will collect and
test 150 samples of beef products. These will include raw beef products such as
mince, burgers and sausages. Cooked ready meals including canned products will
also be tested.
The
samples will be taken by 24 local authorities across all UK countries from
retail outlets, wholesale catering suppliers, and cold stores. Testing will be
carried out by the local authorities and funded by the FSA. The sampling
protocol is available on the link below.
Any
samples testing positive for horse meat contamination above the 1% reporting
level set for the EU-wide study will be announced following laboratory
confirmation. Action will be taken to withdraw the affected product from sale.
All test results will be submitted to the European Commission by July
2014.
Steve Wearne, Director of Policy at the FSA, said:
'We remain vigilant about the threats to our food supply from fraudsters
and determined that we do not see a repeat of the problems that emerged last
year. We are working closely with local authorities to do more authenticity
testing and we have increased the additional funding we provide to support this
to £2m this year.
'This new round of EU testing should give additional
reassurance to consumers across Europe that the food chain is being checked for
potential problems.
'As well as additional testing we continue to learn
lessons from last year’s incident. We asked Professor Pat Troop to review
the FSA’s response to the horse meat incident and are currently working
on her recommendations to improve our intelligence gathering and review the way
we respond to incidents. The Government also asked Professor Chris Elliott to
review the integrity of the UK food supply networks. Professor Elliott’s
interim report is currently being discussed with interested parties and we
await his final report.'