Supermarket shoppers may have bought contaminated meat in the past, the UK's food watchdog has admitted.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is investigating allegations that a rogue meat supplier falsely labelled huge quantities of foreign pork as British, and mixed rotting pork with fresh products for processing, which may have ended up on many UK supermarket shelves.
Tesco and Asda are among retailers believed to be caught up in the scandal, which was revealed by trade publication Farmers Weekly. Co-op, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer are also checking meat supplies to make sure they have not been contaminated, although there is no suggestions that any of the retailers were aware of the issue, as they relied on factory audits to ensure the food was safe and correctly labelled.
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The meat from the supplier is thought to have ended up in ready meals, quiches and sandwiches and may have also been served in schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons.
The FSA said there were no "current concerns" about meat on the market but chief executive Emily Miles told the BBC's Today programme it was "possible" people had been at risk from contaminated meat in the past.
The Farmers Weekly investigation found that until at least the end of 2020, the manufacturer was passing off huge quantities of foreign pork – sometimes tens of thousands of tonnes a week – as British. The report also claimed e-coli and listeria paperwork was falsified.
The Food Standards Agency is not naming the business involved whilst it continues to gather evidence and so as not to prejudice any possible future action by the courts, although it said, based on the investigation so far, "There is no indication that food is unsafe or there is an increased risk" to consumers.
It is understood that the Food Standards Agency's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) started its initial investigation into the firm in September 2021 and seized more than six million documents, which it said are now being gone through. "The food safety allegations have been much more recent and we're following those up. We went to the premises last week and made three arrests and seized millions more documents," Ms Miles said.
Ms Miles told the BBC's Today programme it was "possible" people had been at risk from contaminated meat in the past. "Criminal investigations take time and need to be done with due process and fairness. The FSA will work tirelessly on behalf of consumers to ensure that this criminal investigation is done to the highest possible standards," she said.
Further allegations made by Farmers Weekly, which it said came from multiple sources at the factory, was that it was common to mix rotting pork with fresh goods for further processing, meat was "sometimes thawed out on the factory floor", rotting hams were washed and products including ox tongues were not heat-treated properly.
Farmers Weekly deputy editor Abi Kay also told Today: "Most concerningly, two employees said the paperwork which would pick up bacteria like listeria and e-coli, was falsified. That is no joke, listeria and e-coli can kill people."
Ms Kay said that the alleged fraud worked by a "relatively small volume of British meat" being bought from an approved supplier, and the traceability information from this delivery being used for all the products it made in that week with the majority coming in from elsewhere in the world.
Farmers Weekly raised questions about the audit process. "In this factory when the auditors visited, they would show up unannounced, but they had a certain amount of time between signing in to the premises and being allowed onto the factory floor," she said. "In that short space of time a text message would go out and all the staff would move any suspect products onto lorries, the loading bay or a trolley and push it round one side of the factory while auditors and management were on the other."
President of the National Farmers' Union Minette Batters said the allegations were "absolutely deplorable" and said that the FSA needed more resources . "Consumers and farmers need to know the whole system is honest and that when something says it is British, it genuinely is." "Nothing matters more than making sure the food on our plates is safe."
Supermarkets are on high alert about tracing meat suppliers after the horsemeat scandal in 2013, when burgers at most of the major supermarkets tested positive for horse DNA.
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