Just days after taking out full page advertisements in a number of national newspapers and pledging to develop closer relationship with its suppliers, supermarket giant Tesco has been forced to apologise once again after horse meat was found in another of its products.

On Wednesday (12th March) company technical director Tim Smith issued an apology after the retailer's own-brand frozen meatloaf tested positive for traces of horsemeat. The product was found to contain between 2-5 percent horsemeat. The meatloaf is the fourth Tesco product which has been found to contain traces of other animals' meat.

Mr Smith said, "As part of our new DNA testing programme we have now tested more than 500 products identified as being most at risk of containing horsemeat. We are very sorry that we have had a further product which has failed to meet the high standards we and our customers expect."

He added that the product in question was manufactured at Eurostock in Craigavon, Northern Ireland and said Tesco would review its relationship with the supplier to decide whether it would continue sourcing meat  from them.

Last month, Tesco's chief executive told delegates at the NFU's annual conference in Birmingham that the supermarket, along with many other major players in retail, had learned from the 'horsemeat scandal' and as a result would commit to improving relationships with its suppliers and sourcing meat products "closer to home".

Tesco, Britain's leading grocer, was at the heart of the processed meat scandal when it broke in January. Inspectors from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland discovered traces of animals including pigs and horses in burgers manufactured by firms in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and sold as Tesco's own-brand beef burgers. Burgers from the companies investigated were also being sold in a number of other supermarkets.   

Since then, Tesco's beef Bolognese and lasagne were found to contain up to 100 percent horsemeat in tests. Supermarkets including ASDA, Lidl, and the Cooperative have also been found to have sold processed meat products containing horse.  

Although the reputations of several retailers and food processors have been seriously dented by the scandal, farm shops and local butchers have benefitted enormously from changing consumer attitudes as a result of the debacle.

Food policy experts have said the scandal was exacerbated by the fact that most supermarkets are "buyer led organisations" with shifting, adversarial and convoluted supply chains and that a fundamentally unsustainable food system is the root problem behind the recent processed meat scandal.