In the wake of a series of interconnected food scandals surrounding large suppliers of processed meats in Britain and Ireland, the UK Food Standards Agency has announced that it will roll out testing of food for authenticity.

image expired

In separate incidents over the past month, traces of pork and horse meat have been found at up to 80 percent in processed beef-burgers manufactured for Supermarkets and fast food retailers by companies in the UK and Ireland. Pig meat has also been discovered in processed meat products made by a company in Northern Ireland and sold as Halal to the prison service in the UK and Wales.  

On Wednesday (6th February), FSA published its protocol for a new UK-wide survey of food authenticity. The measures were developed in response to the past weeks' scandals, and increased scrutiny was deemed necessary to salvage consumer confidence at a meeting between FSA representatives, Defra ministers and food industry leaders at the beginning of the week.

Under the new compulsory survey, 28 local authorities from across the UK will take 224 samples of foodstuffs, mostly processed meat, and use DNA testing to establish the presence of any other animal products.

FSA said that the study will also aim to "identify and understand factors that may lead to the presence of meat species that are not labelled as an ingredient," and added, "Samples will be taken in such a way that, if necessary, enforcement action can be taken to protect consumers."

The agency will publish the results from its study, including brand names, and will disclose any formal action taken on its website, though it admitted that the full set of results and analysis will not be available until April 2013.

FSA said it would also work with the processing industry to develop a voluntary testing programme in the hope of getting a clearer picture of current food supply chain standards. Meat processor ABP, which has already lost at least £38 million in supermarket contracts, has announced plans to introduce a testing regime voluntarily.

The government's food standards watchdog has lagged behind on developments in the growing scandal over processed meats; following alarm caused by the horse-burger debacle, which flared up in January when Ireland's FSAI discovered that beef-burgers on sale in Tesco and other major supermarkets contained traces of pig and horse, the UK Ministry of Justice launched its own inquiry which discovered the contamination of supposedly Halal meat products with pork.

Also last month, FSA announced that in 2012 horse meat not fit for human consumption had been exported to France, where the meat is eaten more widely. The meat contained traces of a banned drug used to treat lameness. Critics in the organic food sector and food policy organisations have said the range of slip-ups which have come to light since late January reveal "failures in corporate food governance".

City University's Professor Tim Lang suggested over the weekend that the situation could be exacerbated by the closeness of the relationship between FSA and the food industry. He said acceptance of a "lowest common denominator food culture" has encouraged corner-cutting, which has implications for public health.