Horsemeat row: Offcuts in burgers came from Poland, says FSA

Food standards authorities in the Irish Republic are certain that horsemeat found in beefburgers came from Poland, the UK Food Standards Agency has said.

FSA boss Catherine Brown told the Commons environment committee that a mixture of “beef and horse offcuts” were contained in a frozen block of filler product imported from Poland.

The meat was processed at the Silvercrest plant in County Monaghan.

Investigations have begun in Poland to find out how beef and horse were mixed.

Meanwhile, FSA investigations are still ongoing into how traces of horse DNA came to be found in burgers produced at processing plants in the UK.

And in a separate development, the Co-operative Group revealed independent tests of its own-brand burgers supplied by Silvercrest found traces of less than 1% horse DNA in three samples, and more than 17% in one sample.

The affected products have been withdrawn from sale and the Co-Op has joined Tesco in “delisting” Silvercrest as a supplier.