Swedish furniture giant Ikea halted sales of elkmeat lasagnes across all its European stores after a batch tested positive for pork in a Belgian lab. 
 
 
 
 It was in late March that Belgian authorities discovered that the elk mince, produced by Swedish food manufacturer Familjen Dafgård and sold at Ikea stores, contained a bit over 1 percent pork, which is the limit for contamination of meat products.An estimated 10,000 tonnes of lasagne stored in the furniture giant's central warehouse and at its department stores have been blocked for sale, reported Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) on Saturday.Ikea also withdrew a total of 17,600 packages of lasagne from its stores. All were produced at the Dafgård factory at the time the contamination is thought to have taken place.Anders Lennartsson, head of sustainability at Ikea, told SvD that it is not yet clear how many packages of the pork-contaminate elk lasagne have been bought by customers, but he believes it's a question of "small volumes"."The elkmeat lasagne production only started in January. Most products that could have traces of pork are in our warehouses and have not yet reached the department stores," said Lennartsson.Ikea decided to withdraw the elk lasagnes from all its European stores on the day the test results came in, but the company did not tell customers why it was doing so."We followed company routines," said Lennartsson."Since there were still many question marks, there were no grounds for informing the public while the investigation was ongoing. Now that it has been confirmed we will see how we can best communicate this."Dafgård also ordered its own tests that revealed four cases where the elkmeat lasagne contained small amounts of beef or pork.Dafgård put this down to a failure to clean the premises properly between the handling of different animals. The company said measures have been taken to ensure this is rectified.In a letter to Sweden's National Food Agency ( Livsmedelsverket ), Dafgård's head of quality said that the company has introduced stricter routines to avoid mixing different animal species.Ikea now plans to introduce a global standard for purchasing and processing meat products and to increase the number of supplier inspections.Ikea has not yet decided what to do with the thousands of tonnes of elkmeat stored in its warehouses, but Lennartsson said one possibility is to re-label the packages to show they contain pork.He said Ikea plans to inform the public about the Belgian lab find and encouraged concerned customers to get in touch. 

 Ikea says it has withdrawn 17,000 portions of moose lasagna from its home furnishings stores in Europe after traces of pork were found in a batch tested in Belgium. 
 
 Ikea spokeswoman Tina Kardum said the product had only been on sale for a month when it was pulled off the shelves on March 22. 
 
 The company didn't announce the withdrawal publicly until Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet wrote about it Saturday. 
 
 Kardum said the company found out Friday that a follow-up test in Belgium confirmed the lasagna contained 1.6 percent pork. She said: "We have more information now. That's why we choose to inform now." 
 
 Ikea has previously recalled meatballs and other meat products sold in its cafeterias and frozen foods sections after tests showed they contained traces of horsemeat.
– Maybe Ikea should just stick with furniture: First, its beef contained too much horse meat, and now its elk meat has too much pork. Ikea has pulled 17,000 packages of elk lasagna—you read that correctly—from stores across Europe because they contained about 1.6% pork, reports the Local of Sweden. The product had been on shelves for about a month before getting yanked in late March, but the chain didn't publicize the move until a Swedish paper wrote about it today, reports AP.