Poultry from China sparks search for illegal meat
The Food Standards Agency is trying to trace hundreds of tonnes of poultry, beef and pork following the interception of an illegal consignment of chicken shipped from China.
The discovery of the chicken led to raids on a meat wholesaler where the authorities found evidence of other illegally relabelled meats. The FSA is now trying to trace meat supplied from the same premises to companies across the UK.
An alert has been issued to every local authority to check all meat originating from Eurofreeze (Ireland) Ltd and to impound it if they are suspicious about its labelling. Eurofreeze has had its licence to operate suspended.
The FSA was alerted on November 9 by the Northern Ireland authorities that Eurofreeze was being investigated, following a tip-off about an illegal shipment of poultry from China to Belfast port in August.
The EU currently bans the import of live birds and poultry meat from China as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of bird flu and because residues of illegal antibiotics have been found in the past. The authorities in Northern Ireland seized and destroyed the consignment, having established from shipping documents that it was destined for Eurofreeze, an FSA spokesman said.
When enforcement officers then raided Eurofreeze's premises near Enniskillen, they found evidence that a number of fraudulent health marks had been used there. Health marks are the official stamps used by licensed meat factories to show the origin of meat and to prove that it has passed health and safety inspections. They are easy to fake and in this case, the FSA says that fake copies of health marks owned by large, reputable companies in Ireland, Holland, Spain and Germany were discovered.
The FSA said it did not yet know whether Eurofreeze had received previous consignments from China.
"We can't rule it out but we don't know of any other shipments from China. We do know that Eurofreeze sent out a huge amount of chicken. Officers have looked at recent documentation - tracing the most recent stuff is the key because we may still be able to retrieve it," the FSA spokesman said.
Eurofreeze declined to comment yesterday and would not accept any calls. The company's pet food operation on the same site has also had its licence suspended, according to the FSA. The UK enforcement authorities were asked on November 18 to start trying to trace tonnes of meat that was sold on from Eurofreeze to other companies around the UK.
The company is thought by the FSA to have been distributing legitimate supplies alongside those illegally repackaged but local authority environmental health officers are being asked to check all meat originating from Eurofreeze and to impound it if they are suspicious about its health marks.
The FSA declined to name any of the UK companies that bought from Eurofreeze, but documents passed to the Guardian show that the list sent to local authorities runs to several pages.
Enforcement officers who had seen it said that given the length of the list, the type of companies on it and the sell-by dates of the meat involved, they believed it likely that meat distributed by Eurofreeze had entered mainstream manufacturing of ready meals and meat products, as well as the chains of brokers which supply companies with meat. Some of the companies on the list are known to environmental health officers from previous inquiries into the recycling of pet food into the human food chain.
The FSA spokesman said that it was not aware of any immediate health problems with the meat but admitted that it had not tested any of Eurofreeze's products yet. "Most of the meat there is still frozen, there are thousands of boxes, so it presents huge logistical problems," he said.
It was concentrating its efforts on tracing where Eurofreeze's meat had ended up, he added, and the next step if necessary might be recalling products from retailers.
Alan Reilly, head of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which has also been involved in following up the investigation, said that the origin of the meat already sent out by Eurofreeze was not yet known. "How long this has been going on will be the topic of investigation. Some of it would probably have been consumed."
Environmental health officers have long worried that the number of times meat is traded and the distance it travels to meet today's manufacturing requirements leave the system open to abuse.
Gary McFarlane, director of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in Northern Ireland, said: "The 'farm to fork' cycle now typically involves multiple international borders, thousands of miles, and numerous pairs of hands in the commercial sector. The movement of food in this way, coupled with its clear capacity to act as a vehicle for disease, means that the potential threat to public health has increased."
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