Italy Finds First Horse Meat Contamination Case

Italy has seen its first case of horse meat contamination in lasagne. The product contamination was discovered in six tonnes of minced meat labeled as beef, as well as 2,400 packs of lasagne bolognese.

The food was seized from a company in the country’s north and were packaged by Primia. The group is based in San Giovanni in Persiceto.

The horse meat contamination is the first discovered in Italy, which earlier stated that it found no traces of the meat in batches of beef products seized from Nestle, reports BBC.

The health ministry confiscated 26 tons of cooked and frozen minced beef meals from Nestle last week. The Swiss food giant welcomed the decision made by the Italian authorities. The confiscated meat will be returned to Nestle.

The company announced on Monday that it was recalling beef pasta meals in Italy and Spain after tests showed horse DNA in the products. There is no health risk to horse meat, but the scandal has ruined customer confidence in the European meat market.

The scandal has been blamed on the companies’ suppliers, though all three companies accused in the scandal have blamed their own suppliers. Yahoo! Finance notes that Primia told authorities it had used meat from another company in Brescia in northern Italy.

It also was originally supplied by two other companies in the region. Germany’s consumer affairs ministry also announced on Friday that it has found horse meat in 67 of the 830 food products it has tested so far.

Some politicians in Germany have suggested that the products tainted with horse meat be fed to the country’s poor, because, as Development Minister Dirk Niebel said, “We can’t just throw food away in Germany.”

But the opposition has dismissed the idea, saying that it would be an insult to the poor. In light of the scandal, three of the major French food companies have announced that the y will only use French beef in their products.

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