Horse Meat

[WILLWONKER]

So the big stores are taking the suspected products off the shelf, is this to impress the public, ie a way of saying we are looking after our customers?you can'nt tell me that these giant companies and findus don't have the facilities and labs to do random tests on the food they are buying from wholesalers. Let me tell you a little story, i am getting on in years but back in the 1970 onwards i was in the meat trade, and for an example if you sold pork sausage it had to be pork, not beef not lamb or anything else, every now and again a so called customer would visit your shop and buy some sausage off you once the purchase had been made the so called customer would expose themselfs as a health inspector or trading sandards officer, and tell you that the product would be tested and you would hear in about two weeks time the result. If that test showed that the pork sausage contained less than 65% pork that was the standard then, and made up with fat, water, and rusk to100%, you would be sent to hell and back, if it contained beef you would be sent to hell again, now you might say well beef so what its a lot more expensive, wrong, when i say beef they could use the gutts from the cow not the prime beef, it would still show as beef content under testing, they could allso tell sometimes what sort of gutts had been used. Now since the seventies like every thing else we have high tec and testing is quick and simple, so who is telling porky pies ??????? WHO THEY GOING TO FOB THIS ONE OFF TWO.

[mccfluff]

errrrm the french

[Old_Geezer]

Of course it is to impress the public. What sort of reputation do you think a company gets if discovered to be tying to hide something rather than being open and doing something about it ?

Random testing doesn't necessarily catch everything all the time. By definition it's random so much doesn't get tested.

Do we no longer have health inspectors then ? Or do they not bother with processed/frozen foodstuffs these days ? I'm unsure what point you are making.

[WILLWONKER]

The point i,m making Geezer, is that the animal ie the horse in this case as not bee killed along the normal route, ( the licensed abattoir ) there for as not been inspected by health officers before leaving the abattoir for public consumtion, it as been killed and dressed elsewhere behind closed doors, so if the super markets knew this then they have committed a crime for profit, and may have but peoples health at risk, all animals can carry nasty illnesses the same as humans, would you like to think you had eaten a horse with cancer??

[boxtops]

I'm getting the impression that the big stores have not been back-checking - perhaps sourcing their meat from another provider, who sources theirs from someone else, etc. - and right at the bottom of the chain, an unscrupulous source.... I could be wrong, but it feels like that.

It's not the horse per se that we're objecting to (although some are), it's the fact that we are being flogged the food as something else.

[chrisgel]

I'm convinced that suppliers, processors and supermarkets are all in this together. I thought that after the foot and mouth debacles that a system had been put in place to trace all meat in the country and that food that wasn't for the human food chain had to be dyed or somehow identified.

[ladyalex]

Do you mean they've been flogging dead horses, boxtops?

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[WILLWONKER]

What ever way you look at this, the super market and any other buyer of these products has the resposibility to ensure what they are selling is fit for the consumer. the super markets have got the labs to test these products and should do batch testing on new supplies each time they come in.In my view they knew what they where selling and the law should come down on them hard for this crime they've comitted, and it is a crime, and not just one, its not only misleading and miss selling, it is a very dangerous health issue to the public

[Matheous-2]

One of the 'hairy bikers' got it in a nutshell on tonights news.....Buy your meat product from a local BUTCHER! -At least most of thats not been frozen first like it is in supermarkets !!....We should all get back to local shops....supermarkets are not concerned about public health, just profit.

[TheHangman]

I think it shows a severe lack of responsibility and lack of due care that such as Findus and Birds Eye (supplied chicken products unfit for human consumption) and all other companies that source their product materials from outside sources, fail in their duty to regularly check that their suppliers are supplying the said products. This is not about horse meat, horse meat is edible without being dangerous its about what else is being passed off as something that it isn't, it's about a little honesty. Supermarkets have a lot to answer for.

[Matheous-2]

Another thing that comes to my mind is: Are Environmental Health checks ever carried out on Supermarkets without prior warning? If not, why not?

[flump1]

I would dearly love to shop at the local butchers, however I simply can not afford to and I guess a lot of people think the same.

[diddlydo]

In my experience, if you choose the right butcher, they're no more expensive than supermarkets and are often cheaper per kilo. All that pckaging has to be paid for!

[WILLWONKER]

The hangman, with respect you are missing the point, yes your are right horse meat like any other may not be harmfull, the fact is, is that horse meat is likly to be killed in an uncontrolled unregulated, unlicenced, abattoir so therefore uninspected to be passed fit for human consumtion, this is being done by crooks who don't care if the horse dropped down dead in the field with a nasty illness its big profit for them and thats all their interested in, and the super market, my point is that any ill horse could get in the food chain as they don'thave the same laws in the country as we do where they are being killed, it is down to the super market to know where its coming from , what it is they are buying, and testing it to see if it is what the supplyer says it is.

[boxtops]

Our butcher is no more expensive than the supermarket, and the meat is better quality.