Hamburger or horseburger? Watch what you eat in Ireland

Fancy a hamburger for lunch? How about a horseburger? In Ireland, food authorities have discovered that beef burgers are anything but, with a large proportion containing horse and pig meat.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has published findings from a study examining the authenticity of beef burgers, beef meal and salami products available from retail outlets in the country.

Twenty-seven beef burger products were analysed, with 10 of the 27 products (or 37%) testing positive for horse DNA and 23 (or 85%) testing positive for pig DNA. Beef meal products that were tested all came back negative for horse DNA, but 21 of 31 products tested positive for pig DNA. All 19 salami products analysed tested negative for horse DNA.

Beef burgers with added horse meat were sold in Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Iceland and Aldi in Ireland. The products were produced by two Irish processing plants, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and one UK processing plant, Dalepak Hambleton.

The worst offender was Tesco’s Everyday Value Beef Burgers product, which was analysed to contain approximately 29% horse meat relative to the beef content.

The FSAI says these results raise concerns about the traceability of meat ingredients and products entering the food chain.

“Whilst there is a plausible explanation for the presence of pig DNA in these products due to the fact that meat from different animals is processed in the same meat plants, there is no clear explanation at this time for the presence of horse DNA in products emanating from meat plants that do not use horsemeat in their production process,” said Professor Alan Reilly, Chief Executive of the FSAI.

“In Ireland, it is not in our culture to eat horsemeat and therefore we do not expect to find it in a burger. Likewise, for some religious groups or people who abstain from eating pig meat, the presence of traces of pig DNA is unacceptable.

“We are working with the meat processing plants and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Marine to find out how horse DNA could have found its way into these products.”

The retailers involved have removed all implicated batches from sale. In addition, Silvercrest Foods has informed the FSAI that it is withdrawing all products from sale and replacing them with new products.