The horsemeat scandal, which appeared to begin in Ireland and the UK, has now become a European problem.
From America, The New York Times highlights the divide in European tastes for horsemeat. “The labelling of horse meat as beef has breached one of the great culinary taboos of Britain and Ireland, two countries that pride themselves on their love of certain animals, particularly horses,” write Stephen Castle and Douglas Dalby.
“The fact that the source of the meat appears to have been mainland Europe, where the consumption of horse meat is far more common, has raised suspicions of fraud because beef is more expensive than meat from horses,” the paper says.
What has become clear is that certain meat products on sale in Ireland or the UK have probably been through a long chain of production, covering many countries across the EU.
România Libera, a Romanian daily, reported that the single market allows “a Romanian slaughterhouse to export meat to a Cypriot wholesaler, who then sells it on to a company in Luxembourg, who then gives it to a Swedish company that puts it onto the market in the United Kingdom through its subsidiary in France.”
In the British press, the Sun sent Nick Parker to an abattoir in Sibiu, Romania. CarmOlimp is one of the slaughterhouses under suspicion. It is run by Paul Soneriu, who the paper reported as saying, “Peasants whose horses have reached the end of their working lives sell them to us but horse meat makes up only a small part of our business — 0.5 per cent”.
Soneriu is confident that the horsemeat from his factory is not the source of the scandal, as his horse products are properly identified, he said: “I am shocked and hope whoever is responsible is held accountable — but I can tell you 100 per cent it is not us”.
The Daily Telegraph reported that, “Romania has some 25 horsemeat slaughterhouses and exports horsemeat to Cyprus, France, Poland and the Netherlands, often through middlemen, officials said.”
The Romanian daily, Adevărul, writes, “all eyes are on Romania, because it is Romania where the meat comes from”.
România Libera goes further, saying the situation, “brings grist to the mills not only of British xenophobes, but also to the mills of all those who still argue that Romania should never have been accepted into the EU”.
The Guardian’s Damian Carrington writes that the real source of the scandal is the change in European regulation, last year, according to former Head of food authenticity at the FSA, Dr. Mark Woolfe. “The change meant that ‘desinewed meat’ (DSM) could no longer be called meat on packaging. DSM produced in the UK was the main ingredient in most value-range burgers, sausages, pies and kebabs and the change meant that thousands of tonnes of meat had to be sourced from elsewhere and at low cost”.
Poland continues to deny that it had a hand to play in the crisis. Polskie Radio reported on February 11th, that, “Despite the allegations by the Irish government of Poland being the source of horse meat that turned up in beef burger manufacture at Rangeland and Silvercrest (part of the ABF food giant)...veterinary inspectors in Poland have yet to find any contamination in the food process”.
Meanwhile, back in the States, Time Magazine is keen to highlight the discrepancies in the European meat industry. Megan Gibson writes, “As authorities have attempted to trace the products backward to determine exactly where horsemeat entered the food supply chain — and whether the addition was by mistake or criminal design — they’ve shone light on just how murky and unregulated the European meat market is”.
By Simon Tierney.
