Food News

 Guardia Civil detained a Dutchman close to Alicante recently.

The food fraud consisted of selling horse meat not good for human consumption declared as beef.

The case was discovered in 2013 by Irish authorities detecting horse meat in beef burgers and affected more than a dozen countries in Europe. Hundreds of tons of horse meat were passed off as beef and put in pre-cooked meals such as lasagne and curries. Meat firms, frozen food, and fast-food companies were affected by the investigation. Animals came from Portugal and northern Spain, their meat was processed in a facility and sent to Belgium.

The scandal was the starting for the European Food Fraud Prevention programme and triggered the development of authenticity testing methods.

AGROLAB laboratories offered to their clients efficient analytical methods for safe identification of animal species in meat products and even in strongly processed food by their DNA- and protein patterns. We have established also new methods based on MALDI-TOF technology to differentiate meat and fish within a few hours.

Author: Frank Mörsberger