Authorities in the Netherlands on Thursday arrested the director of a meat-processing and wholesale company whose business was being probed for allegedly mixing horse meat with beef.According to reports, officials from the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority arrested the man on suspicion of fraud. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of six year's imprisonment.The horse meat scandal initially made headlines in mid-January, when Ireland's food safety watchdog discovered traces of horse DNA in burger products sold by major British and Irish supermarkets. In the months following the discovery, traces of horse meat turned up across Europe in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna, as well as in fresh beef pasta sauce.Last month, the Dutch food safety authority called on 370 companies around Europe and 132 more in the Netherlands to recall 50,000 tons of meat they bought from Willy Selten.
The former boss of Tesco Sir Terry Leahy described the closure of independent shops as “part of progress” and our High Streets as “medieval”. Now 98 per cent of the UK’s £150billion grocery industry is controlled by just nine stores.
They stripped out the butcher, the baker and the publican – the very sinews of our communities. All ruthlessly filleted to drive up market share and return for city investors. Last year, Tesco’s pre-tax profit was £1.7billion. And they forced our farmers to sell their meat, milk and eggs for less and less and signed them up to longer contracts. This is called “price tyranny”. So why the hell didn’t supermarkets spend a fraction of their billions in profit to test their products?
The fact is supermarket price tyranny has played a huge part in a race to the bottom to provide cheaper meat. Last April the EU banned desinewed beef and lamb?– mince produced by mechanically rubbing the fleshy remains off the bones – from being called meat. This was the staple of value meals, cheap burgers and kebab meat.
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