Horsemeat scandal: Four new products test positive
Nearly 2,000 tests for
horsemeat have been carried out by British retailers
Four beef products sold by Bird's
Eye, Taco Bell and catering supplier Brakes have been found to contain horse
DNA, the Food Standards Agency says.
This is the third wave of test results received by the FSA, which has now received a total of 5,430 test results.
Meanwhile, new tests conducted on beef retail products revealed no new cases of horsemeat adulteration, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.
This latest round of tests saw 1,797 products being examined.
The FSA has asked retailers to test beef products for the presence of more than 1% of horsemeat, with anything above that figure considered to be a sign of adulteration.
Its latest results have found that more than 99% of tests show no horse DNA at or above the level of 1%.
The affected products are Birds Eye's Traditional Spaghetti Bolognese and Beef Lasagne - which the company took of shelves last week as a precaution; Brakes' Spicy Beef Skewer; Taco Bell's Ground Beef.
'Let down'
Taco Bell has three outlets in Britain and says all its affected stock has been removed. The products had come from a supplier in Europe, the company said.
A spokesman for Taco Bell said: "Once we learned of this issue, we immediately voluntarily tested our product for our three Taco Bell restaurants in the UK.
"Based on that testing, we learned ingredients supplied to us from one supplier in Europe tested positive for horsemeat.
"We immediately withdrew it from sale, and discontinued purchase of that meat and contacted the Food Standards Agency with this information. We apologise to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority."
Birds Eye said in a statement: "We are introducing a new ongoing DNA testing programme that will ensure no minced beef meat product can leave our facilities without first having been cleared by DNA testing."
Brakes, which is based in Ashford, Kent, said: "Our testing programme represents a significant proportion of all results the FSA has obtained from across the food industry.
"Brakes have also segregated a frozen burger as a precaution after equine DNA at 1% was reported to the Food Standards Agency."
It said it was "very disappointed to have been let down" by suppliers and that it "sincerely apologised to our customers."
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