My Lidl Pony

[Michael Palaeologus]

Frog would be more expensive.

Rat would be more likely.

[Saffron]

True that. Mice stuffed with nuts were favourite of the ancient Romans. Ah, for the good ol' days!

[Alan Medic]

How many amputee chickens are there out there? Seems cruel.

[Salsaboy]

I heard that the Chinese were getting in on the act by selling Quarter Panda's.

[Michael Palaeologus]

Nice one Salsaboy. Pun-age of high merit.

[fireangel]

If you have been put of Tesco burgers you should try their meat balls, apparently there the dogs!!!!

[Otta]

That one was done on page 1 I think.

[Salsaboy]

Page 2, by me!

[Salsaboy]

Not only does Findus lasagne contain 100% horsemeat, traces of class hay drugs have also been found.

[LondonLogCo]

Do you reckon that's Findus done for as a brand

Remember what happened to Fray Bentos ? Still , they bounced back as "Tynne Brand" and everyone *ahem* rushed out to buy it again.

Indeed

[El Pibe]

How much is there in their bologneighs?

I'll get my coat....

[maxxi]

Despite the neigh-sayers feeling they were saddled with galloping pun syndrome I fell it behooves us to revisit the fetlock topic...

...that Lasagne is an anagram of Nag Sale should have warned us from the off.

I'm here all week...

[RosieH]

Does anyone else think it's just the French having a laugh at us snooty rosbifs, too good to eat horse?

[malumbu]

The bloke on Channel 4 news shouting his interview at Owen Patterson is annoying me. Patterson also annoyed me by calling it the Food Safety Agency rather than 'standards'

Government is there to set the standards/safety framework not chew our food before we eat it.

Horsemeat is in the foodchain either due to carelessness or fraud.

Enforcement authorities (eg trading standards or the police) will take action as necessary

It is up the producers and retailers to operate due dilligence and have traceability in place.

It is unlikely to be a safety problem, no one has died and I don't think that their is a rush to the bogs.

If you meat eaters ensure that you are eating British beef it probably would never have happened.

Fraudsters are always attempting to substitute inferior products - orange juice is a good international example.

Ross foods once mixed up their veggie mince, for that awful Linda McCartney brand with beef, didn't hear all the whinging then.

Dull story.

[aquarius moon]

Surely, turning vegetarian is becoming a very tempting option?

Given the latest findings.....

Who knows what they will find next, and where it will be?

So glad I don't eat meat.

[maxxi]

No.

No, it's horse that is becoming the tempting option.

Properly regulated and slaughtered with no bute - no point trying to bolt the etc. etc. Let's REALLY join Europe and tuck into a nagburger.

[Burbage]

LondonLogCo Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you reckon that's Findus done for as a brand

>

> Remember what happened to Fray Bentos ? Still ,

> they bounced back as "Tynne Brand" and everyone

> *ahem* rushed out to buy it again.

Not really. Tyne Brand is owned by Westlers, whereas Fray Bentos was Premier Foods (and may still be). Premier may have offloaded the brand, or be trying to, but the pies are still available, though whether they're any different, or even produced in different factories, is another question. But in the world of brands it's what's on the packet that matters, not what's in it.

The last major big-brand scandal I remember illustrates this nicely. John West was hit, back in 1978, when botulism was found in a batch of tinned salmon. Although it was owned by Unilever, it was a proper company with real money, ran it's own European fleet of fishing boats and its own canning factories. In other words, it had more to rely on than just a name, and could still catch fish and tin them, even when demand for its own label hit rock bottom. That meant it could survive, even in the face of the prolonged consumer boycott that followed, if only by tinning stuff from the supermarkets that had removed its own name from the shelves. As a result, it's doing well now, and even though it's now owned by a Thai company running boats out of Ghana, it still catches and packs its own fish.

Findus is a bit different. It's just a brand - one name out of many in the portfolios of private equity outfits that used to relate to specific companies but are now just licenced out to whoever cares to pay. The owners are middlemen who happen to have bought a logo, and this story is all about middlemen - whether the exploitative suppliers of dead horse, the processors who construct the 'meals' or the logisticians and contract-swappers who palm off one against the other and will, I imagine, be finding out that the only thing they didn't outsource was the risk. As such, there's no real business to protect. Just the 'brand awareness' that's been built up through advertising over the decades, and that's a lot more fragile than a proper company. However deft their PR agency's response, it will break the suspension of disbelief that the advertising relies on - that Findus is a company that actually produces stuff, rather than a beige collection of dusty skimmers, juggling licences, contracts and invoices in a disembodied pretence of adding value.

Although it's not the first brand to be affected, and the supermarkets are likely to continue to support it (as they're almost obliged to do, given their own problems), I suspect it's doomed, at least in the short term. Although it's not a premium brand, their customers do pay a little over own-brand prices, and I doubt they'll be happy to find they've been doing that for a product that's, at best, no better.

I may be wrong. There's no accounting for what people will pay for, and some popular brands, while perversely famous for the shoddiness of their goods, still carry on peddling tat to people who like the comfort of a familiar name. Even if it does disappear for a while, there's a reasonable chance of it being resurrected later, either by the current owners or some nostalgic chancer of the future, when the fuss has been flattened. It's a fairly rubbish basis for a business, but it's a fairly rubbish world, and you can't help but grudgingly respect those with the callousness to make money out of it.

[Top Banana]

I'm guessing Malumbu is a Civil Servant because I haven't read a more ignorant comment on this story. The whole food production chain is regulated by the EU, having replaced the UK regulatory regime - NOT the Food Standards Agency.

The FSA can only check any product if they have firm evidence of a prior problem. In other words, they cannot carry out preventative checks at point of entry or production - this is illegal under EU law as discrimination on the ground of nationality.

Now a problem has emerged, then the FSA can involve itself and the police - both here and in Europe. Stable door, horse bolted etc.

This is an exact replica of the breast implant and hip replacement problems, and is another perfect example of EU regularory failure. Our own internal systems in all these cases is entirely dependant on the good faith and efficiency of EU member states in maintaining standards and to make sure that what is in the boxes is what is on the EU-regulated tin.

And, of course, it has AGAIN been shown to be a complete failure.

[Huguenot]

That's an unnecessarily anti EU agenda there Top Banana.

The FSA has NEVER been in the business of making preventative spot checks by DNA profiling meat at point of entry.

So your suggestion that they have been handicapped by the EU is utter bollocks.

The common market was created with a view to LOWERING handicaps to business when trading overseas, in order to drive productivity and growth.

It means that the same rules apply to operating within the EU as within the UK. It is the responsibility of the distributor to check that their supplier is up to scratch.

Your proposal to spot check every supplier in every deal would be the enemy of business throughout the UK.

As is standard in these situations, I wonder what the motivation is for people to fabricate allegations about the EU.

[malumbu]

Wot bolloxs top banana

Food Safety Act 1990. Food must comply with food safety requirements, must be "of the nature, substance and quality demanded", and must be correctly described (labelled).

Enforcement authorities = trading standards, port health, environmental health, meat hygience service. All national bodies. Lots of cross EU working, standards etc, but enforcement in this country is national. Central government (ie FSA) does not generally enforce (there are powers to the Health Secretary) but FSA does have the powers to carry out surveillance where there is a possible hygiene or standards issue. Eg the adulteration of orange juice, factory vs farmed salmon and other areas where there is a quick buck to be made.

Interesting that FSA was set-up as MAFF was considered too close to the manufactures and producers. But FSA has been considerably down sized, and food labelling has gone back to MAFF (ie Defra).

[malumbu]

Just to correct myself, enforcement is generally carried out at the local level (but not by the EU) apart from the Meat Hygiene Service that is a national body.

[Top Banana]

The FSA was indeed created by the Food Act 1990 and is currently still capable of food inspection. However, their own strategy 2015 document states that -:

"If we become aware that food contains unsafe ingredients, or is labelled in a way that makes it unsafe for some people to eat, we will have it removed from sale. We do this in conjunction with other enforcement organisations, such as port health authorities, trading standards and environmental health."

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/strategy20102015.pdf

I have never disputed that. I have no doubt that nearly all the UK food network points are adhereing to current regulations. However, note the little "IF", there. They cannot proactivly test and/or check food imports from the EU. They are not allowed to under EU law.

Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 implements the HACCP strategy across the EU.

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosafety/hygienelegislation/guidance_doc_haccp_en.pdf

As Lord Haskins (former chairman of Northern Foods) stated on Today this morning -:

"You can't get away from the odd cheat or the odd failure, but this is so widespread, it's endemic, it's institutional fraud right across the piece. Thousands of people must be aware of what?s going on. There's a huge amount of form-filling going on by the way. Everybody fills in forms to say they are doing the right thing but they don't actually go and look at the factory to see what is happening inside the factory".

That is my point. Everybody is making sure the boxes are ticked whilst ignoring the failures and fraud.

"It came from abattoirs in Romania through a dealer in Cyprus working through another dealer in Holland to a meat plant in the south of France which sold it to a French-owned factory in Luxembourg which made it into frozen meals sold in supermarkets in 16 countries."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/horsemeat-found-in-british-supermarkets-may-be-donkey-8489030.html

Food regulation is an exclusive EU competence. And it is these regulations that have spectactularly failed. I stand by my statements.

[Huguenot]

The fact that this horsemeat came from Romania or Luxembourg is neither here nor there.

That is not a failure of the EU, the responsibility for food safety lies with suppliers, distributors and manufacturers. The EU has merely provided standardized regulation across the continent to ensure that all suppliers will be held to the same level of accountability.

The responsibility for breaking laws lies with those who break them, not those who make the laws.

It also makes ABSOLUTELY clear that the implementation of the strategy should be controlled by the competent NATIONAL authority. i.e. NOT the EU

Edited to add: I've since discovered the FSA actually lost control of this regulation when in 2010 the UK coalition government changed responsibility from the FSA for food composition to local authorities. The inability to check the composition of food lies entirely at the hands of UK government decisions NOT the EU.

You may not have noticed, because it doesn't fit in conveniently with your anti-European agenda, but we have our own problems with food safety within the UK. Stores in our very own Peckham have been revealed to be retailing highly questionable meats with very little attention to safety or provenance.

The EU regulations regarding proactive checking of EU food is simply there to make sure that countries deliver to the spirit of the open market; and don't create barriers to entry by creating false 'procedures' for imports.

EU food is still subject to exactly the same safety checks as UK food throughout the supply chain. The FSA can be as rigorous as they wish - so long as the same treatment is meted out to all foods without prejudice.

This is not trying to prevent spot checks on DNA (that never took place anyway), and the consistency of EU regulation ensures that overseas suppliers will be held to account as much as a UK supplier would be - something that could not have been done before the EU.

European arrest warrants also mean that miscreants can finally be chased across borders (something that could not be achieved without the EU).

So stop this silly partially informed Europe bashing - that it is based on national prejudice is clearly obvious by the way that you refuse to identify any of the parties without naming the country of origin. You clearly see their nationality as part of the crime.

[Top Banana]

"So stop this silly partially informed Europe bashing - that it is based on national prejudice is clearly obvious you refuse to identify any of the parties without naming the country of origin. You clearly see their nationality as part of the crime."

Er...that last paragraph was a direct quote from the Independent - see the link.

But nice, criticise EU regulations and you are automatically nationalistic and racist.

Stay classy, Huguenot. Stay classy.

[Top Banana]

Of course, the very fact I am criticising the EU means I should really turn myself in as the criminal I am.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1325398/Euro-court-outlaws-criticism-of-EU.html

Next time I finish my shift of scraping much-hated cyclists off the floor, dealing with gang activity and whatever else concerns the good citizens of our much-loved capital, I shall remove my stab vest and hand myself over to the other side of the desk.

"So stop this silly partially informed Europe bashing - that it is based on national prejudice is clearly obvious you refuse to identify any of the parties without naming the country of origin. You clearly see their nationality as part of the crime."

Clearly.