DutchNews.nl - Dutch food safety body joins 'horse in British burgers' investigation

The Dutch food safety authority is looking into reports that several Dutch firms are involved in the British ‘horse meat in burgers’ scandal, the Telegraph reports.

‘We will be looking into a few companies as part of a first investigation,’ a spokesman told the paper.

Officials believe the horse meat in burgers sold by British supermarkets came from contaminated ‘filler’ imported from Holland.

Under Dutch regulations, if a company is found to have deliberately passed off horse meat as beef, the maximum fine is just €1,050, the paper said.

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Horse steaks used to be a popular meat in the Netherlands but are now much less widely eaten. Instead, horse is used to bulk out more expensive meat in snack products.

Checks on popular Dutch snacks such as bitterballen carried out by Wageningen University in 2007 found horse meat was included in 32% of them. And in 2008, a television consumers programme found horse was still used by many producers of frikandellen.

The Netherlands is also a major processor of horse meat imported from abroad, largely from South America.

Readers' Comments

Nothing wrong with horse meat

By Mr Ed | 20 January 2013 5:42 PM

Just one small step away from a can of dog food, woof! :P

By The visitor | 21 January 2013 12:02 PM

A woman has been taken to hospital after eating horsemeatburgers. Her condition is said to be "stable".

By pwhetton | 21 January 2013 1:00 PM

Only a €1,000 fine!! Jesus Christ....for a start, it's outright fraud, and nobody gets a jail term but rather a slap on the wrist? Where's the incentive for them to NOT do it again!!

Sure, there's nothing wrong with eating horse, but YES, there is something severely wrong with profiteering and fraudulently passing off product X as product Y. No wonder this country has gone to shit!!

By A Consumer | 21 January 2013 1:04 PM

Everything is wrong with horse meat when you are paying for beef. You also have zero traceability of the meats origin and how it has been handled and processed.

By Sir Charles Harmsworth | 21 January 2013 5:54 PM

This scandal is going on and on in the UK. In the last few weeks the British have now blamed Polish and French companies. Are there also Brits to blame, or is it only because of those pesky foreigners?

By pepe | 8 February 2013 1:02 PM