Policies & Issues: Food How could this have happened? Retailers
are extremely disappointed this has happened. We work closely
with consumers and suppliers to ensure all products are
accurately labelled. This includes clear specifications to
suppliers on meat used in products backed up by traceability and
auditing. Unfortunately in a small number of cases this has not
prevented horsemeat entering our supply chain. The large number
of tests on products has shown this is not a widespread
breakdown of the system and is probably due to deliberate fraud
but we operate on a zero tolerance basis and are determined to
both identify affected product and ensure it doesn't happen
again. Why weren't you testing for horsemeat? We routinely test
for a number of issues to ensure food safety. We also routinely
test for the % contents of meat in products but as horsemeat is
not sold in our products would not routinely test for it. We do
change testing regimes regularly based on intelligence from both
the food industry and FSA