Following meetings and fresh discoveries of contamination last week, Defra secretary Owen Paterson has commented on the 'horsemeat scandal'; the discovery of meat from animals including pigs and horses in processed meat products marked as beef. Although government ministers have said the contamination amounts to fraud and assured prosecutions will ensue once the case is clearer, commentators elsewhere have suggested the issue is a systemic one, and reveals failings in corporate food governance.

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On Friday (8th February), Environment Minister Owen Paterson made a statement announcing he would meet with the Food Standards Agency, which promised stricter compulsory DNA testing measures and wider voluntary testing, following a meeting with Farming Minister David Heath at the beginning of the week.

Paterson said that, in addition to new tests, which will be conducted by food businesses, 92,000 food safety and food authenticity tests will continue to be carried out by the FSA and Trading Standards each year.

He said, "Investigations are going on across Europe, and the evidence so far suggests that it's either criminal activity or gross negligence. We [Defra] and the FSA are working closely with the authorities in these countries, as well as with Europol, to get to the root of the problem. The French authorities are saying they are viewing the issue as a case of fraud rather than food safety."

Speaking after the meeting he added that "more and tougher testing" will be introduced and test results will be published every three months by the FSA, to further increase transparency. The Defra secretary also suggested that, "At the moment, every case we are looking at is a case of fraud… is absolutely wrong [and] a conspiracy on the public."

Responding to concerns of the farming lobby, which has accused 'Big Food' companies of impacting on agriculture's reputation, undermining the hard work and strict adherence to regulations of the UK's farmers, Paterson avowed, "British food prides itself on scrupulous traceability. I will not have that undermined by the selfish, reckless and potentially illegal actions of anyone – whether in this country or abroad." The UK's meat industry bodies have sought to distance themselves from the scandal and used the fervour to promote British meat.

Over the weekend, Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh criticised the slow government response to the debacle. She said, "I think the government has been really behind the curve on all of this. It's been nearly four weeks since the Irish government first alerted us to the problem." She added that blaming European suppliers amounted to "a Tory knee-jerk reaction" and a counter-productive diversion from investigations into transparency within the UK food processing industry.

Red Tractor assurance scheme's chief executive David Clarke also acknowledged that industry had lessons to learn from the crisis. He commented, "This very cheap processed meat produced with raw materials that are traded all across the world, all across Europe, is potentially a problem".

Although the government insists that the current food scare amounts to "incompetence or fraud", food policy experts have suggested the problem is more wide-ranging than Defra cares to admit, linking it directly to deregulation. Food policy professors from the UK's research institutes claim that a laissez-faire attitude to testing and regulation has led to a situation in which traceability has suffered and, as a result, safety cannot be guaranteed.  

In the immediate term, FSA has given industry a week to test its processed beef products and report back. Testing must be completed by 15th February. Supermarket chains in France have also removed products thought to contain horsemeat from their shelves, citing mislabelling.

Contrary to Ireland, where evidence of contamination in processed meats was first discovered, there is currently no police investigation into the scandal being conducted in the UK, though representatives of Scotland Yard have met with FSA inspectors over the issue.