From the DaILY mAIL:
Tesco in fresh embarrassment as it admits its pork sausages were contaminated with chicken and its venison burgers contained lamb
Published: 20:37, 26 September 2014 | Updated: 21:47, 26 September 2014
Tesco in fresh embarrassment as it admits its pork sausages were contaminated with chicken and its venison burgers contained lamb
- Tesco admitted its DNA testing had found undeclared meat in five products
- Up to 30 per cent lamb was discovered in venison burgers sold to customers
- And cold pork sausages were found to be contaminated with chicken
- Britain’s biggest retailer said it believed this was down to human error
- This comes days after it emerged Tesco had inflated its profit by £250million
Published: 20:37, 26 September 2014 | Updated: 21:47, 26 September 2014
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-venison-burgers-contained-lamb.html#comments
Tesco faced fresh embarrassment last night after it emerged its cold pork sausages were contaminated with chicken and turkey and its venison burgers contained lamb.
The beleaguered supermarket giant admitted its DNA testing had found undeclared meat in five products on its shelves.
The discovery comes just days after it emerged that Tesco had inflated its profit by at least £250million – amid claims it did so to cover up a slump in profits.
A batch of Butcher’s Choice pork sausages, made by Tulip, contained up to five per cent undeclared turkey and chicken and ‘Kids Billy Bear’ turkey slices were found to contain traces of chicken
Yesterday, Tesco admitted it had discovered between five and 30 per cent lamb in its venison burgers.
Britain’s biggest retailer said it believed this was down to human error and that staff at supplier Two Sisters may have picked up the wrong meat.
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Feldhues said it understood the chicken contamination came from its turkey supplier.
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Tesco said it believed the meat contamination was down to human error and that staff at supplier may have picked up the wrong meat
Meanwhile, a batch of Butcher’s Choice beef, pork and onion and turkey sausages, made by Tulip, contained between one and five per cent undeclared turkey and chicken.
This was understood to have been caused by the cross-contamination of machinery by factories which made several different meat products on-site.
Tesco said it was too late to withdraw the products from the shelves by the time the discovery had been made because the rest of the batch had been sold – and presumably eaten.
The results were among 450 tests carried out on random meat products over the last quarter.
Tesco became the first retailer to introduce DNA testing on its meat after being embroiled in the horsemeat scandal in 2013.
During the row, it emerged Tesco’s ‘minced beef’ in its frozen bolognese was up to 100 per cent horsemeat. The value range ready-meal was made by Comigel, a French firm, was also linked to contaminated products at Findus and Aldi.
Tim Smith, Tesco’s group quality director, said: ‘The presence of chicken, turkey and sheep DNA in these five products does not render them unfit for human consumption or otherwise unsafe and does not represent a risk to public health.
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Tesco admitted it had discovered between five and 30 per cent lamb in its venison burgers
‘We have insisted that our suppliers put in place improved process controls to prevent these problems reoccurring, and have made clear any future incidents of this type will have consequences.’
The supermarket has tested more than 6,000 products since the horsemeat scandal, which it publishes online on a quarterly basis.
Its DNA testing has only flagged up one previous breach, when it found its Simply Roast meatloaf, supplied by UK firm Eurostock, contained five per cent horsemeat.
Ben Reynolds, from campaigning food and farming alliance Sustain, said: ‘The news of contamination in Tesco’s sausages, burgers, and meat slices clearly shows that lessons have not been learned from the horsemeat scandal.
‘It shows that recent recommendations from government are not having the required impact - we are still seeing animal carcasses mixed up and, yet again, the public are in the dark about what meat they’re eating.
‘If consumers want to be sure that the meat they are buying is responsibly produced and accurately labelled, they should buy it from suppliers they know they can trust, looking out for certification labels which guarantee meat is produced to the highest standards, such as organic and RSPCA certified meat. ‘
Yesterday, Two Sisters said they were ‘extremely concerned to be informed by our customer of an instance of lamb traces in a pack of venison burgers’, which were processed at their site in Cornwall in May.
A spokesman said: ‘We have concluded that this incident is a case of human error that may have occurred at any point in the supply chain and not a deliberate or malicious act.
‘However, this is still wholly unacceptable and we have since enhanced a number of our working practices and controls to reassure our customers and their consumers that our processes are as thorough and robust as they can be.’
Tulip told The Grocer it was ‘very disappointed’ to have fallen below its own high-quality standards in relation to the Butcher’s Choice sausages, but was confident ‘the issues identified have been fully addressed’.
And Feldhues insisted it only processed turkey and pork but ‘had identified a supplier of turkey as the source of the small proportion of chicken meat’.
Yesterday, it emerged that Tesco finance director Laurie McIlwee will still receive his £1m payoff despite an accounting scandal that has engulfed the grocer this week.
While McIlwee has not been accused of any wrong doing, but the timing of the award will embarrass under-pressure chairman Sir Richard Broadbent.
The firm announced in April that McIlwee was to be replaced but it said he would be available to help with the ‘transition’ to a new finance director over the following six months.
However it has since emerged that McIlwee was told by former chief executive Philip Clarke not to come into the office since April and Tesco has been in the unusual position of having no finance director in the interim.
It is thought that it was during this period that the accounting mistake occurred.
New finance director Alan Stewart was drafted in three months earlier than planned from Marks & Spencer this week.
Last night a Tesco spokeswoman said: ‘Investigations into each incident have concluded that production line error was responsible and we have worked with suppliers to ensure their controls are effective and our stringent standards are met every time.’
