Defra officials have made further comments on the horsemeat scandal, which is now a major issue across Europe.

The scandal, which has now spread to France, where processed meat products were removed from shelves by a number of supermarkets this week, began in the UK and Ireland in January when food safety inspectors in Ireland revealed beef-burgers on sale at Tesco, Lidl and Aldi were contaminated with DNA from pigs and horses. Since then evidence of widespread contamination has been uncovered.  

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Although the government blames criminal gangs for "defrauding the public" and argues the issue is a case of mislabelling, food policy experts have said the problem is a "normal accident"; an inevitability due to the nature of the food supply chain and supermarket economics.

On Tuesday evening, the UK government's claims that organised criminals in Eastern and Southern Europe were at the heart of the widening scandal were dealt a heavy blow when Food Standards Agency Inspectors and officers from two police forces raided premises in Wales and West Yorkshire suspected of dealing horsemeat labelled as beef.

On Wednesday (13th February) farming minister David Heath made an announcement following Defra's third meeting with major food industry players in the space of a week. He said that over the course of the meeting, those gathered developed a plan of action to deal with the contamination issue.

The government has said widespread testing of processed meats will need to be carried out to reassure the public, though as Food Standards and laboratory services have suffered hefty cuts in recent years, questions have been raised over the practicalities of carrying out such a comprehensive investigation.  

Heath added, "I reiterated that the current situation is totally unacceptable and that retailers, caterers and other food business operators need to be completely open with their customers. They assured me that they are on track to share meaningful test results by Friday and we discussed practical, pragmatic steps on how to take this forward. The Food Standards Agency will be informed immediately of any tests that show a positive contamination."

Environment minister in Brussels

Following an EU meeting on Wednesday, held with the aim of addressing the current consumer crisis, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson unveiled a raft of measures agreed upon by legislators. These include:

• The introduction of a three-month programme of random DNA testing of beef products, set to begin 1st March, with the first set of results available by mid-April.
• A new intelligence-sharing system to enable immediate sharing of information on current investigations, to improve reaction time and cooperation across state borders and "allow Europol to co-ordinate investigations into criminal activity."
• Acceleration of the European Commission's recommendations on labelling the origin of all processed meat.

Paterson said the measures should "enable member states to act straight away if they have any suspicions that food businesses are not playing by the rules." He added, "Because of the urgency with which we have to deal what is clearly an international issue, what we've agreed will now be ironed out in an emergency meeting of food experts on Friday and in the next meeting of EU agriculture ministers on 25th-26th February."

Also on Wednesday, a BBC Newsnight programme focusing on the crisis examined whether the issue is the result of widespread criminal fraud, or moves towards self-regulation and a quest for 'cheap food'.

NFU President Peter Kendall said players across the supply chain had to work together and "reassure people about where food comes from and the tests it goes through." He argued for more local produce and shorter supply chains, questioning "the notion that [the meat supply chain] has become such a circuitous chain around large chunks of Europe and the world," though he toed the government line that the ultimate responsibility for the horsemeat debacle lies with "a rogue person, a fraudster."

He called for more "integrated, designated supply chains" to improve trust between consumers and farmers in the wake of the scandal and suggested major retailers have shown an interest in creating longer-term relationships with farmers.

However, Food policy professor Tim Lang suggested UK leaders' reflex action of blaming criminal gangs in Eastern and Southern Europe for the contamination, was too "convenient". He said that, contrary to the "bad apple theory" of unscrupulous traders in other countries, evidence suggests that the scandal is the result of a "systemic failure, where some of the biggest, most powerful, highly capitalised and ruthless controlling companies in the food system have been found to be selling horsemeat" in violation of contracts.

He added, "So far this isn't about safety, it's about trust," but countered the industry argument that voluntary self-regulation and closer relationships between retailers would result in a safer, more transparent food system. He said, "This is about money, power and control; the Food Standards Agency inspectors have been slashed and cut. We can't have industry policing itself, that's what's gone wrong; the big food companies didn't actually have the power they said they had."