Agricultural News
The Latest Food Scandal You Have Heard Almost Nothing About- Horsemeat Mixed Into Hamburger
Wed, 22 May 2013 18:59:02 CDT
One of the featured speakers at the 29th International Alltech Symposium in Lexington, Kentucky, was Dr. Patrick Wall from University College in Dublin, Ireland. He spoke about food scandals and crises down through the years. At the end of his presentation he spoke about the recent horsemeat scandal currently roiling Europe. Horsemeat has been found in beef patties and products labeled as 100-percent beef.
Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays spoke with Wall after his presentation. (You can listen to that interview by clicking on the LISTEN BAR at the bottom of this story.)
Wall said the main driver of the scandal has been economic.
"Horsemeat is much cheaper than beef and so this was a case of food fraud where people were substituting horsemeat for beef.
"Now, in certain European countries horsemeat is eaten and is looked upon as a choice meat. But in many countries because of the laws, the horses, or the welfare issues, a horse is like a companion animal, or a leisure animal, or a performance animal like a racehorse and they're not considered food animals at all. So, particularly in those countries, there is no value in horsemeat and when horses reach the end of their career they end up in the pet food chain.
"Unscrupulous dealers started to switch horsemeat for beef and it's not routine in the meat sector to DNA test raw ingredients to make sure if you buy ground beef-you assume you're buying ground beef-and if there was horse mixed in it, you wouldn't pick it up.
Wall said one of the food testing agencies began doing DNA testing because ground beef patties were so cheap-about the same price as a can of cat food. DNA testing confirmed the patties contained horsemeat and consumers in countries where horses were companion animals became very angry.
Wall said the reaction would probably be the same in the United States.
"Can you say that this problem doesn't exist in the U.S.? Well, we didn't think the problem existed until we started testing for it. So you never know. Greed is a great motivator."
Several criminal organizations in separate countries working independently of one another perpetrated the fraud, Wall said.
"This showed a big lesson that a company's brand and reputation is only as secure as the weakest supplier that they have."
Wall said this scandal rocked the European Union that thought it had a robust and secure food supply chain.
What the scandal also pointed out, Wall said, is that the conventional media fed off of misinformation on the social media and opinion started to be considered as fact, unfairly shredding the reputations of several companies.
"At one time we thought we could control the media with press releases and press briefings, but not anymore."
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