House of Lords written statement – made at on 4 March 2013.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Owen Paterson) has today made the following Statement.
I would like to update the House on developments since my Written Ministerial Statement on
The vast majority of results from food retailers, wholesalers, and caterers are now in. Including previous weeks' testing, a total of 5,430 test results of the most vulnerable processed beef products had been reported to the Food Standards Agency by
Last
Number of tests | Number of positive tests for horse DNA at 1% or above | Positive test results as percentage of number of tests | Number of products testing positive for horse DNA at 1% of above | |
Set 1 results published on 15 February 2013 | 2501 | 29 | 1.2% | 7 |
Set 2 results published on 22 February 2013 | 1133 | 6 | 0.5% | 6 |
Set 3 results published on 1 March 2013 | 1797 | 10 | 0.6% | 4 |
Total for all published results (as of 1 March 2013) | 5430* | 44* | 0.8% | 17 |
* Cross-checking of data has identified one positive test reported previously that is a duplicate test on the same batch of the same product, and this test has been removed from the total number of positives.
As shown in the table, the industry programme of testing has now identified 17 products confirmed as containing over 1% horse DNA. A further two products had by
The Food Standards Agency has reported to me over the weekend that a batch of product which has tested positive in another member state is likely also to have been imported into the UK for sale. The product type had already been withdrawn from sale here as a precaution, and will be reported by the Food Standards Agency on confirmation.
There have been no positive tests to date for the presence of bute in any of the UK food samples found to contain horse.
Food businesses will continue to test for the presence of horse DNA in their beef products, reporting to the Food Standards Agency. These results will now be published every three months. However, food businesses that identify any confirmed cases of contamination above 1% horse DNA will report these to the Food Standards Agency immediately and this information will be published on the agency's website as soon as the information is received.
This week, the Food Standards Agency will publish the first set of data from the UK-wide authenticity survey being carried out by local authorities on behalf of the agency. This survey has three phases. The first phase involves sampling and testing minced beef products for the presence of horse and pig DNA. A second phase covers a wider range of beef products including ready meals. The third phase is the sampling under the EU Co-ordinated Control Plan, the Europe-wide programme of testing to which I referred in my Statement of
Both the food industry and Food Standards Agency deserve credit for having put this programme of tests in place very quickly, completing over 5,000 tests in a very short space of time. The unprecedented level of testing reported here, combined with the Food Standards Agency led local authority and EU programmes over the coming weeks, will give us a clear picture of the extent of the problem. Investigations into cases where horsemeat has, quite unacceptably, been discovered will continue, and anyone found guilty of criminal activity should expect to face the consequences.